Background October 2022 marks the 60th anniversary of the 1962 Al-Hasakeh Exceptional Census in northeast Syria. On October 5, 1962, the Government of Syria conducted a one-day census in al-Hasakeh governorate, a region predominantly inhabited by ethnic Kurds, in response to purported immigration from Turkey and Iraq. Families were required to present evidence of residency in Syria back to 1945. Those who presented documents but could not meet the residency requirement were registered as ajanib (‘foreigners’ in Arabic). Those who could not present any documents or did not participate in the census were not registered and became known as maktoumeen (‘concealed’ in Arabic), whose residence in Syria became illegal. An estimated 120,000 Syrian Kurds, or 20% of the Kurdish population, were stripped of citizenship during this exercise, a number that grew to an estimated 300,000 by 2010, as descendants of ajanib and maktoumeen inherited this status.1 Syrian Kurds registered as ajanib were eligible to receive government identification stating that they were foreigners in Syria and not listed in any population registry. However, maktoumeen Kurds were not eligible to receive state-issued documents, though they could obtain an informal document with prior permission from the local Syrian police known as a shahadat at-taarif from a mukhtar, or community leader that could be used to register a child for school, create an informal marriage certificate, and obtain other basic services. In April 2011, the Government of Syria passed Decree 49 (2011), granting ajanib Syrian citizenship. While the conflict made applying for citizenship more complex by 2015, 105,000 ajanib had successfully obtained citizenship through this order. The 2011 decree did not mention to maktoumeen Syrian Kurds.2 Between early 2011 and late 2013, various sources estimate that the number of ajanib and maktoumeen Syrian Kurds inside Syria dropped from 300,000 to 160,0003, likely as a combined result the decision to grant ajanib citizenship and forced displacement outside of Syria due to the conflict. Since these 2015 population estimates, military operations in Al-Hasakeh governorate in 2019 displaced an additional 200,000 people in October 2019, though no estimates are available as to the number of stateless Syrian Kurds in this population movement. Research from 2016 suggests that very few ajanib and maktoumeen remain inside Syria, with the majority of ajanib having nationalized under the 2011 provisions, and the majority of maktoumeen having fled4. The majority of stateless Syrian Kurds are presumed to have settled in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), with smaller numbers settling in Lebanon, Turkey and Europe. In KRI, stateless Syrian Kurds are able to access legal residency and humanitarian assistance equally to the Syrian citizen refugee population, and their status as stateless is disguised by the policies Background 58