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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NAIROBI 000413 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
ROME PLEASE PASS TO DHS 
DEPARTMENT FOR PRM/A (PLEASE PASS TO DHS/USCIS) 
 
SENSITIVE -- ENTIRE TEXT -- NOT FOR INTERNET POSTING 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
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. 
 
---------- 
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. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
New Official, Old Subject: Exit Permits Again 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Tough New Line in '06: "These Are Not Refugees" 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
¶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. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
And, We're Not Giving Them Exit Permits 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶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. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Only Compromise Offered: A Grace Period 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶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 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶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. 
 
--------------------- 
Potential Impact Huge 
--------------------- 
 
¶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