SOLVING STATELESSNESS policy paved the way for legal naturalisation. It was in part because the population was economically not only self-sufficient but beneficial to the country that naturalisation could be discussed and made politically palatable on the national level. The case also highlights, however, the fragility of this integration where it does not come with legal status. It is worth stating the obvious in this regard: a durable solution is only a durable solution when it leads to meaningful citizenship – including access to all the rights associated with citizenship. As one man said, “I can’t be a citizen if I am still a refugee”.21 Unequivocally, the only way in which someone can be said to no longer be a refugee is once they genuinely have a new or renewed citizenship. As a result, both citizenship and national refugee policies need to be thought through carefully to ensure that the two processes complement rather than contradict each other. In other words, it is important that integration as a part of refugee policy, and naturalisation as a path to that integration, reinforce rather than undermine each other. Second, this scenario shows the need to look beyond a strict legal reading of the situation to its practical realities. An exclusively legal reading might have asserted that the majority of the population in question (who had been born in Tanzania) were citizens all along, regardless of the fact that they were not acknowledged or treated as such. But attempting to assert this right might have undermined the practical solution offered by the government of Tanzania. In addition, there is a need to look past the official status to the extent to which rights can be accessed in practice. Following naturalisation, the new citizens should have had access to a wide spectrum of rights. However, the announced relocation programme made them feel that their new status would in practice restrict their rights to freedom of movement and residence. In addition, the problems that emerged over relocation as a condition for receiving citizenship were a symptom of political resistance to naturalisation at both a national and local level. And while the situation of this population has now largely been resolved at a legal level, the initial resistance has not entirely disappeared and the national mood is becoming less welcoming to those perceived as foreigners. The government of Tanzania has increasingly been expelling “irregulars” from the country, and national refugee legislation is only becoming more 21 Interview with former refugee man, Katumba settlement, Tanzania, August 2012. Cited in IRRI, ‘I can’t be a citizen if I am still a refugee’, supra n16. 83