From Encampment to Conditional Inclusion

Legal Reform and the Administrative Limits of Refugee Integration in Kenya

Abstract

Kenya’s refugee regime is experiencing a significant shift from long-standing encampment toward inclusion, driven by the Refugees Act (2021), the Refugees (General) Regulations (2024), and the Shirika Plan (2025–2036). However, the transition remains uneven in practice. This article explores the legal and administrative challenges that continue to restrict refugee integration despite the formal expansion of rights. Using doctrinal legal analysis, policy review, and a comparative examination of three empirical contexts—Dadaab, Kakuma-Kalobeyei, and urban Nairobi—the study investigates how statutory guarantees related to movement, work, documentation, and access to services are influenced by securitization, bureaucratic delays, and fragmented multi-level governance. The article highlights six structural dilemmas: restricted mobility, incompatibility between refugee and labor regimes, security-vetting constraints, weak coordination under devolution, limited access to land and property, and the selective domestication of international norms. It further argues that these barriers have socio-economic and psychosocial impacts, as prolonged displacement, legal uncertainty, and exclusion deepen vulnerability and undermine self-reliance. The findings show that Kenya’s framework reflects inclusion in theory but restriction in practice. By situating Kenya within refugee governance debates, the article demonstrates how legal reforms without administrative coherence perpetuate containment through inclusionary policies.