UNDERSTANDING STATELESSNESS IN THE SYRIA REFUGEE CONTEXT  In Jordan, Sami lives in a house with several family members, including his parents and his brother’s family. His youngest child was born in Jordan, but they had not registered his birth as the process was too complicated. Rami’s other brother has been resettled to Canada and he wanted to join him as he saw no future for himself or his children in Jordan. He approached the Canadian embassy directly and was offered the opportunity to apply for resettlement. He spoke of how the process was smooth until they asked for his son’s birth certificate. He currently cannot prove that his son is their child, a requirement for him to accompany the family to Canada. He is now trying desperately to register his son’s birth, but the procedure is particularly complex as the deadline for registration within one year has passed.293 5.2.3.3 Local integration The aim of interventions to mitigate statelessness in the context of displacement from Syria is to ensure that all refugees retain or gain access to Syrian nationality. Nevertheless, “in cases where resettlement is not an option, finding a home in the country of asylum and integrating into the local community could offer a durable solution to their plight and the chance to build a new life”.294 UNHCR indicates that local integration can therefore be an appropriate solution “in some countries and/or for some groups or refugees [including potentially for] refugees born on the territory of the host country who may otherwise be stateless, refugees who do not have the possibility to repatriate in the foreseeable future, and refugees who have established close links to the host country”.295 However, in the countries hosting refugees from Syria, prospects for local integration – including the eventual naturalisation of (stateless) refugees – are likely to be limited, especially because these countries host such a substantial number of refugees from Syria, often compromising a large proportion of their population. The issue of naturalisation is generally sensitive in this region,296 and the situation of long-standing/historic in situ stateless populations which are also present in the host countries is generally characterised by marginalisation rather than integration.297 In such an environment, local integration is likely to be a significant challenge and is unlikely to be offered as a durable solution for stateless refugees from Syria. 293 Interview with Sami, Irbid Jordan, July 2016. 294 UNHCR, ‘Solutions: Local Integration’, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/local-integration-49c3646c101. html. 295 UNHCR, Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration: The 10-point plan, supra n286, chapter 7 – Solutions for Refugees, pages 193-194. 296 For instance, Lebanon has a delicate confessional balance which it feels that any naturalisation may threaten. For more information see L. van Waas, Nationality, Statelessness and the Numbers Game in Lebanon, Tilburg Law School, 2014, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_ id=2550734. 297 For more information on the human rights situation of the stateless in Lebanon please see, Frontiers Ruwad, Invisible Citizens, A Legal Study on Statelessness in Lebanon, 2009, available at http://www. refugeelegalaidinformation.org/sites/srlan/files/fileuploads/Invisible_Citizens_-_A_Legal_Study_on_ Statelessness_in_Lebanon_Nov_2009.pdf; and Legal Agenda, The Statelessness in Lebanon: Between Shame and Shadows, 2016, available at: http://english.legal-agenda.com/article.php?id=741&lang=en. For more information on the situation of stateless persons in Jordan, see HRW, Stateless Again: Palestinian Origin Jordanians Deprived of their Nationality, 2010, available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/ files/reports/jordan0210webwcover.pdf. For a discussion of the situation of stateless persons in Egypt, see See, L. Kingston and K. McBride, ‘Legal Invisibility and the Revolution: Statelessness in Egypt’, Human Rights Review, 2013. RESEARCH REPORT 53