Freedom House Migration T urkey has been a destination and transit country for people fleeing oppression and conflict almost since the Republic’s foundation. Today, it hosts the world’s largest population of asylum seekers: nearly four million, the vast majority of them Syrians.25 In 2016, thanks to a deal reached between the European Union and Turkey, the country became a bottleneck for migrants who must now wait inside Turkey for eventual resettlement elsewhere.26 The migration system is best characterized as “highly differentiated, multi-layered, and occasionally ad hoc.” 27 While some of Turkey’s migration policies, notably its protection of the Uyghurs, offer a shield against transnational repression, lack of due process and other gaps make the system vulnerable to abuse. For most of its history, Turkey did not have an official policy of asylum or international protection. Instead, immigration was seen as part of the nation-building process, with an emphasis on welcoming “ethnic kin” migrants who would eventually become Turkish citizens. The Directorate General for Migration Management (DGMM) was established in 2014 as the official institution responsible for migration in Turkey. Under the DGMM, a dual track system of protection was created: temporary protection for Syrians and international protection for non-Syrians.28 A bifurcated system with few protections For people from Russia, Central Asian states and Iran, Turkey offers the possibility of international protection through conditional refugee or subsidiary refugee status. Both groups of protected individuals are required to live in specified satellite cities in Turkey and have limited access to social services. Since the departure of the United Nations’ refugee agency, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, from Turkey in 2018, registration and processing of asylum applications is handled solely by the DGMM. Migration experts point out that problems with processing applications, including a lack of trained migration experts, poor-quality translation, incomplete information about the applicants’ home countries, and lengthy processing times, persist.29 The DGMM also allows diaspora associations within Turkey to manage some of the registration process for migrants by giving them humanitarian residency permits to distribute to Afghans, Uyghurs, and individuals from countries in Central Asia who have not yet officially registered in Turkey. The associations are meant to act as intermediaries and use the flexibility of the humanitarian residence permit in order to fill gaps in the overstretched migration system. However, research on the experience of some Afghan migrants living in Istanbul suggests that these permits are sold rather than given out and that the process is extremely vulnerable to corruption.30 Turkey hosts the world’s largest population of asylum seekers. Also worryingly, since the departure of the UNHCR, cooperation and information sharing between the DGMM and the MİT has increased. Interviews conducted for this report suggest that the identities of asylum seekers are routinely shared with the MİT. This is substantiated by media reports of asylum seekers being threatened with deportation by the intelligence agency and by police. Information sharing between migration and security agencies is problematic because it contributes to the securitization of migration generally. With respect to transnational repression, this type of information sharing can aid in the targeting of vulnerable people by a foreign state that is on good terms with Turkey by giving access to information about a wanted person’s whereabouts. Waiting for resettlement exposes people to transnational repression In theory, conditional and subsidiary protection is meant to be temporary statuses while the refugee awaits resettlement outside Turkey. However, the process of resettling refugees who have fled to Turkey has largely ground to a halt over the last ten years, and people now remain indefinitely in the country. Residing in Turkey with only thin legal protections provides opportunities for transnational repression in several ways. Their presence in Turkey exposes members of some diasporas to the risk of physical violence. As outlined in the security section, police protections for targeted individuals are driven primarily by currents in bilateral relationships between Turkey freedomhouse.org 5