Possibility of refugee status being granted in Jordan to someone fleeing the West Bank for his participation in anti-Israeli activities. [JOR5085]

Jordan currently has over 1 million Palestinian refugees living within its borders, "216,000 of them still live in 10 refugee camps scattered across Jordan". Any Palestinian refugee living in Jordan prior to 1988 may "obtain fully valid Jordanian passports. They have the unrestricted right to live, work, and own property in Jordan. Palestinians residing on the West Bank may obtain passports valid for 2 years. The Government also issues temporary Jordanian passports to [...] Gazans resident on the East Bank who can prove they were displaced prior to 1971."
(Source: U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1989, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1990), p. 1451.)

An article by Robert I. Friedman ("The Palestinian Refugees", The New York Review, 29 March 1990, p. 36) states that Jordan is the only Arab country to offer citizenship to Palestinian refugees. The same article, it states that according to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), "children born to refugee parents are considered refugees" (p. 36), which accounts for the very high number of Palestinian refugees.