New refugee bylaws set 9-month deadline for state to take over asylum processing from UNHCR

The bylaws for Egypt’s first ever asylum law were finally issued by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbuly on Monday — a full year after the legal deadline for their completion. In the belated set of regulations, the government gives itself a tight nine-month deadline to set up and operate a system that will, for the first time, see the state take sole control over asylum applications from start to finish, determining independently whether it will grant, renew or deny refugee status. Applications are currently received, reviewed and status granted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Ahmed Moawad, a lawyer specializing in refugee cases, cast doubt on the government’s capacity to establish the ambitious system in such a short timeframe, express ing concern to Mada Masr that rushing the transition could leave refugees vulnerable and without legal protection. Even with the UNHCR’s support, the current system remains barely able to meet the needs of the millions of refugees seeking safety in Egypt, with thousands left in a legal limbo at the mercy of ongoing arrest and deportation campaigns targeting foreign nationals. **** The bylaws published Monday in the state’s Official Gazette give the Permanent Committee for Refugee Affairs, the state body created by the law, a six-month deadline to take over the process of reviewing asylum applications that is currently handled by UNHCR. At present, asylum seekers reaching Egypt must apply first for refugee status at UNHCR then once their application is accepted, they can then apply for a six-month residency at the Interior Ministry’s Passports, Emigration and Nationality Administration. The bylaws effectively state that the new committee will take over UNHCR’s role in the process to review and respond to asylum applications submitted by people entering the country legally within six months, or within one year for anyone entering illegally. If refugee status is granted, the applicant will receive a document confirming their status which will remain valid for three years, renewable via a reassessment process that refugees must apply for three months before the expiration of their document. The pathway effectively replicates the existing process, according to Moawad. The decree published Monday states that the bylaws must come into effect within three months of publication, effectively meaning that there is a maximum of nine months before the committee will be the sole processor of all refugee applications in the country. But the new system has come together at a snail’s pace so far. The asylum law, passed and ratified in a rush in December 2024, dictated that the committee should be formed within three months of the law’s approval and the bylaws within six months. A year and a half later, the only official appointment in the committee so far has been its head, former State Information Service (SIS) chair Salah Eddin Abdel Sadeq, while the bylaws issued this week are almost a year overdue. The slow progress is an indictment of the administrative capacity needed for refugee application processing to happen smoothly and safely, in Moawad’s eyes. “A year and a half to write 33 pages, and you want to transfer the entire UNHCR system in six months?” sa id the lawyer. “You haven’t even fulfilled the commitments you imposed on yourself.” Under the existing system, refugees are often left waiting without legal protection. UNHCR has faced budget cuts which have slowed both registration and document renewals, at the same time as state immigration authorities have failed to keep pace with an uptick in applications as the war in Sudan has forced 1.5 million people out of their homes and over the border. Applicants face long delays at the Interior Ministry’s residency department, which conducts only a limited number of interviews for the issuance or renewal of residency permits for refugees and asylum-seekers per day — a lack of capacity that Moawad said leaves many refugees without legal protection. The long waiting periods already leave people vulnerable to recurring arrest campaigns , such as earlier this year, in which security authorities arrested and deported refugees en masse, sa id Moawad. Refugees who have been granted status from UNHCR but are still waiting for their residency renewal appointment with the Interior Ministry are frequently targeted and deported in the arrest campaigns, while some are illegally deported even with valid residency permits, sai d Moawad, adding that these campaigns are conducted at the discretion of the National Security Agency. New vulnerabilities are also introduced under the law. If a refugee status application is rejected, the bylaws state that the applicant will now have just 15 days to submit an appeal against the state committee’s decision. The committee must respond with a decision on the appeal within 30 days. If the decision is still negative, the asylum-seeker would have to pursue legal action at the administrative court to overturn the decision. The bylaws also empower the committee to impose restrictions on refugees and asylum seekers’ movement and freedoms when it deems it appropriate to do so for “national security and public order,” including in situations of war or combating terrorism. In these situations, the committee is empowered to impose measures such as restricting a refugee’s residence to a specific geographic area, prohibiting entry to border regions, and requiring prior authorization for the refugee to travel between governorates or abroad, for a renewable, three-month period. They also grant the committee powers to order the close monitoring of a refugee’s movement, such as obligating them to “show up” regularly — without specifying where — to verify their location, and/or stipulating that the committee must be notified of any change in residence or contact information within 24 hours. Refugee advocates who spoke to Mada Masr when the law came out criticized these stipulations as restricting refugees’ freedoms. In a commentary on the law after its ratification in 2024, UNHCR pointed in particular to the vagueness of the articles of the law referencing national security and public order, describing them as “excessively wide in scope” and pointing out the potential danger they represent to the rights and freedoms given to refugees in the international conventions signed by Egypt. As for the handover from UNHCR, the bylaws state that the committee should coordinate with the UN agency to receive all existing data on refugees who are already registered with the agency within the six-month period established. And for people currently holding valid UNHCR cards, the bylaws state that the cards will remain valid until their expiration date or until the new committee can issue valid refugee documents that meet its new specifications, whichever comes first. As well as defining for the first time the role of the state’s refugee committee, the bylaws also describe the requirements for its technical secretariat, which they state should consist of experts who specialize in handling and reviewing applications, collecting data from applicants, handling priority cases, dealing with unaccompanied children and family applications, and providing applicants with pro-bono legal representation. Aspects of the new law that were praised upon its 2024 release are upheld in the bylaws, including provisions that enshrine in Egyptian law for the first time the principle that all refugees should have full access to state-sponsored primary education and healthcare. The asylum law also enshrines legal rights to work, obtain travel documents and apply for citizenship through the same conditions set for other foreign residents — developments that were welcomed by refugee and migration experts who spoke to Mada Masr when Parliament passed the law. Moawad not ed that the Egyptian government had passed and ratified the law, without a serious prior discussion with organizations working with refugees or UNHCR and without sharing the drafts with them. An informed source told Mada Masr in February that government bodies had invited UNHCR representatives to discuss the draft bylaws but did not share a copy with attendees of the discussion. The post New refugee bylaws set 9-month deadline for state to take over asylum processing from UNHCR first appeared on Mada Masr .