Stuck in legal limbo

Via Harvard Gazette

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Anna Crowe, clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, spent two semesters in Jordan interviewing Syrian refugees about the difficulties of obtaining legal documentation and the precarious existence of living and traveling without papers.

Some Syrian refugees in Jordan lack documentation, so they wait and wait

When human rights clinical instructor Anna Crowe first began documenting the legal challenges faced by Syrian refugees in Jordan, she found a tangled system that put their lives on hold. Thousands of refugees, stuck in legal limbo, were vulnerable to risks ranging from statelessness to relocation to refugee camps.

In Jordan, Syrian refugees must register with the interior ministry to obtain identity cards, which allow them access to health care, education, work permits, and humanitarian assistance. But to obtain the cards, the refugees need to show their original Syrian identity documents, which many lost in transit. They are caught in a catch-22.

“In theory, everyone or most people should be able to get the card,” said Crowe. “But there are practical challenges refugees face, which means that tens of thousands don’t actually have those cards.”

Lack of documentation is an aspect of the Syrian refugee crisis that doesn’t grab the same headlines as the harrowing scenes of people rescued from the rubble of a bombed city or drowned in the Mediterranean while fleeing to Europe. But the consequences for stranded refugees can be crippling.

Continue reading