NO EXIT? GOK SAYS IT WILL DENY EXIT PERMITS TO

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TAGS: PREF ET KE
SUBJECT: NO EXIT? GOK SAYS IT WILL DENY EXIT PERMITS TO
PRIORITY 3 AND VISA 93 REFUGEES

REFTEL: 05 NAIROBI 02882


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Kenyan authorities have long expressed
concerns about "undocumented" refugees (those not registered
with UNHCR),and often threatened to stop issuing exit
permits to them. The latest threat seems more serious than
previous ones. It is possible that the GOK will back down,
perhaps if offered training and equipment to help conduct
its own registration. If the threat is carried out, it will
have a heavy impact on this year's admissions numbers. END
SUMMARY.

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Background
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2. (SBU) Ethnic Boundaries Ignore the National Ones: Kenya's
borders arbitrarily divide some of the ethnic groups that
make up the mosaic of its population. As a result, someone
on Nairobi's streets who looks and sounds Somali, for
example, can be either a citizen, an illegal immigrant, or a
refugee, and there are few ways to tell the difference.
Asked for their Kenyan ID's, illegals and refugees
(illegally in Nairobi due to Kenya's "encampment" policy)
often bribe the police. As in many countries, crime is often
blamed on refugees and illegal immigrants. Given Kenya's
"neighborhood," concerns about illegal immigrants are real
and reasonable. Last summer there was a months-long crisis
at UNHCR when then Minister of Immigration Linah Kilimo,
apparently on an impulse, announced that undocumented
persons would be rounded up and deported if they did not
regularize their status (ref A),leading to weeks of huge
crowds outside UNHCR's doors, hoping for any kind of letter
that would help prevent them from being rounded up and
deported.


3. (SBU) A History of GOK Concerns: For years, Kenyan
authorities have expressed concerns about the U.S. Priority
3 ("P-3", family reunification) program, which often
involves undocumented refugees. The authorities have
accused the program of being a magnet for illegal aliens who
come to Kenya hoping to pose as P-3 relatives (buying their
way onto U.S. cases). Others, they say, are not actual
refugees, but move illegally to Kenya from their home
countries just in time to be interviewed by CIS and travel
as P-3 refugees. (COMMENT: Despite the best efforts of JVA
and CIS to detect such fraud, it is likely that a few such
cases do get through. END COMMENT.) For Kenyans, this is
an issue that touches on security, crime, and politics.
Periodically, Kenyan authorities have either stopped issuing
exit permits (necessary for departures of undocumented
persons),or threatened to do so. (COMMENT: This was the
first crisis to greet Refcoord in August 2003 when he
arrived to Post, and since 2003, there have been regular
threats to stop issuing exit permits. END COMMENT.) Each
time, Refcoord (sometimes backed up by other officials) has
responded to their concerns. The usual agreement has been
to provide more information to the GOK, to enable Kenyan
authorities more easily to investigate possibly fraudulent
cases. Each time, thus far, the GOK has gone on issuing
exit permits based on this information.


4. (SBU) The Size of the Issue: IOM prepared an analysis of
refugee movements it undertook in 2005 for a range of
resettlement countries from Austria to Zambia. There were
12,871 refugees resettled out of Kenya in 2005 (to 25
different resettlement countries, mostly European with the
U.S. and Australia thrown in),of whom 7,496, or 58 percent,
were non-UNHCR registered refugees. Of the total number
resettled out of Kenya, 75 percent, or 9,669, went to the
United States. Out of that 9,669, there were 6,038 non-
UNHCR registered refugees, or 62 percent of the U.S. total.
For Kenya, which sees these non-UNHCR registered refugees as
the problem, 81 percent of the problem is in the U.S.
program. END BACKGROUND.

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New Official, Old Subject: Exit Permits Again
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5. (SBU) Late last year Peter Kusimba, the new "Head of
Refugees Department" at the Ministry of Immigration and
Registration of Persons, expressed his Ministry's concerns
to IOM personnel and Refcoord about issuing exit permits to
persons identified by various governments but not by UNHCR
(or the GOK) as refugees. (For the U.S., this means
especially P-3 refugee cases, as well as Visas-93 refugees,
but all refugee resettlement countries have substantial
numbers of cases not certified by UNHCR.) At that time, he
focused on his desire for improved notification by the
resettlement countries. From the U.S., he was looking for
names and ages of each departing refugee (rather than just
heads of families),and said he would pick a sampling of
suspicious-looking cases for quick investigations, which he
promised would not interfere with departures.
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Tough New Line in '06: "These Are Not Refugees"
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6. (SBU) Kusimba invited Refcoord, UNHCR Senior Protection
Officer Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, IOM Operations Director
David Derthick, and several officials from his department to
a meeting on January 24. Kusimba began with a tougher line
than in earlier discussions. He insisted that P-3 refugees
were "not refugees," as they were not recognized by UNHCR,
questioned why the U.S. would conduct interviews on Kenyan
soil to determine U.S. refugee status, and asked that any
refugees not recognized as such by UNHCR should not be
identified as refugees in our requests for exit permits.
The U.S. should respect the laws of Kenya. Refcoord said
different countries use different methods of determining
refugee status, noted that Kenyan consular officials issue
visas in the U.S. without determining whether the applicants
had entered the U.S. legally, and added that the label Kenya
puts on U.S. P-3 refugees is really up to Kenya, but some
joint designation should be possible. He emphasized that
the U.S. has full respect for Kenya's authority over its own
territory, procedures, and laws. UNHCR's Pagliuchi-Lor said
that after WWII the Italian government had found a
compromise label for persons emigrating to the U.S. that the
Italians had not recognized as refugees, and suggested that
a compromise designation should be possible.

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And, We're Not Giving Them Exit Permits
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7. (SBU) Kusimba pointed angrily at the number of exit
permits granted by Kenya in 2005 for those not recognized by
UNHCR. "The feeling in my government," he said, "is that
most people going for resettlement are not refugees." Kenya
wants to help genuine refugees, but not these "others."
Refcoord (along with IOM's Derthick) pointed out at length
and in considerable detail that the U.S. process to
determine refugee status is almost identical to the UNHCR's,
and insisted that the U.S. has accepted many UNHCR-
designated refugees in the past, is eagerly pushing for more
at the moment, and will continue to do so. At this point,
Kusimba stated quite clearly that "the message from my
government" is: Kenya will not continue issuing exit
permits to those not identified by the UNHCR as refugees.

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Only Compromise Offered: A Grace Period
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8. (SBU) In the ensuing discussion, Refcoord and other
participants proposed various compromise solutions.
Pagliuchi-Lor expressed her deep concern over the UNHCR's
capacity to determine the status of these new thousands of
cases, especially in an environment of deep budget cuts,
saying there is currently a backlog of eight or nine months
in the refugee status determination queue. Refcoord again
stressed that this would be a redundant effort, as UHNCR
uses the same criteria and methods to determine refugee
status as the U.S., and pointed out that as the UNHCR's
single largest donor, the U.S. would effectively be paying
for the same thing twice. He stressed the enormous
disruption this would cause the U.S. program. It became
clear that there was no compromise to be reached, as far as
Kusimba was concerned. As a last-ditch effort, Refcoord
asked that at least there should be a "grace period" of
several months from the announcement of any new policy, in
order to avoid at least some of the costs a sudden
cancellation would bring. Kusimba said he would ensure a
grace period, but would not offer more than two months.

-------------- -
Softer Approach Worth Pursuing? Time is Short
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9. (SBU) After the meeting, Refcoord spoke with Pagliuchi-
Lor concerning the registration backlog at the camps. She
said that if anything the backlogs are bigger at the camps
than in Nairobi. There are "temporary arrangements" for
feeding and sheltering new arrivals at the camps, but these
do not involve anything that could be construed as
recognition of refugee status. However, Pagliuchi-Lor said
her impression is an offer to help with capacity building
might mollify the GOK. She threw out the possibility of
providing the GOK with computer tracking systems and
training. When Refcoord made a follow-up call to Kusimba on
Friday, Kusimba said the Permanent Secretary had already
drafted a letter to Refcoord. He implied that it contains a
cut-off date that will end the issuance of exit permits to
"undocumented" refugees.

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Potential Impact Huge
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10. (SBU) Dave Johnson of the Joint Voluntary Agency (VLA)
provided a quick look at the Kenya pipeline in light of this
proposed new policy. Of 4,881 individuals approved and
pending departure in Kenya, 3,733 are P-3 and 118 are Visas
93 (also affected),or 79 percent of the Kenya pipeline.
Adding in the other countries in the region increases the
denominator to 6,308 individuals approved and pending
departure, which lowers the affected percentage to 61
percent, still an enormous portion of the total. Even with
a possible grace period, such a policy would have a big
negative impact on admissions numbers this year and likely
an even greater impact in years to come.

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Comment
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11. (SBU) Kenyan officials speaking with Refcoord in recent
months have two styles. When they meet one at a time with
Refcoord and IOM, they are flexible and willing to look at
different alternatives, even if they admit that there are
political stakes involved. However, at an "official"
meeting in a GOK office with five or six lawyers and other
officials, there is little to no flexibility (see reftel for
an example of such a meeting). Despite the existence of
this pattern, the January 24 meeting had a real edge, and
likely indicated that political pressure is building to "do
something" about illegal immigrants. The swamping of UNHCR
offices in Nairobi by documentation seekers after the
Minister's apparently spontaneous remarks last summer
indicates that the government is quite capable of action
that, while disruptive, tells citizens the government is
taking action against illegal immigrants. The resettlement
program seems about to be caught in the next action. To
avoid this, Refcoord proposes exploring possible proposals
with PRM, with a view to offering help to the government in
return for its acceptance, in practice, of the view that CIS
interviews cover the same ground as UNHCR's. Higher level
intervention may be needed.

BELLAMY