The State’s Friendly Face? Post-2013 Egyptian Exiles and Turkey’s Exceptional Legal Tools
By Elsayed E. Abdelhamid
During my ethnographic fieldwork (2022–2023) among post-2013 Egyptian political exiles in Istanbul, Turkey, I conversed daily about the nuances of the different legal statuses for which Egyptians can apply. Pursuing a “stable” legal status consumed much of their time, effort and resources. As my interlocutors struggled to achieve what they called al-istiqarār al-qānūnī (legal stability), my research gradually shifted to examine how these Egyptians navigated the politico-legal processes of regularization and the steps they took to obtain legal statuses. Alongside my interlocutors, I faced the challenges of understanding these processes within Turkey’s unsettling legal context – a system characterized by frequently changing sub-laws and circulars, discretionary implementation and unwritten policies. Even finding reliable information about legal status requirements has proven difficult repeatedly.
In addition, acquiring Turkish citizenship was a “public secret” on my field site, a well-known matter that was not talked about and was made invisible to outsiders. This became clear during a conversation in August 2022 with Amgad, a naturalized Egyptian exile since 2017. Many of my interlocutors, including Amgad, expressed unease in revealing details of their naturalization process. In response to my queries, Amgad replied: “I do not want to lose my nationality. It is better to stop talking about this topic”. This topic caused unease among post-2013 Egyptian exiles since they applied for the so-called exceptional Turkish nationality, which depended primarily on social connections and networks. Success in mobilizing these networks varied significantly based on political affiliation, class, gender, and public visibility. Before the 2023 presidential elections in Turkey, fears grew among naturalized Egyptians as opposition alliances’ anti-migrant campaigns sparked rumors about reviewing citizenship decisions made under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In this context, many of my interlocutors were concerned about losing their recently acquired Turkish nationality.
What interests me is how these exiles navigated or even mobilized ambiguous exceptional measures and discretionary legal tools while pursuing legal stability. They faced a paradox: struggling to attain “stable” legal statuses while fully aware of the uncertain and precarious nature of Turkish migration and citizenship regimes (Parla 2019). The very messiness of how migration law unfolded in everyday life enabled different positions and relations with the law. Although migration laws and legalizing acts shaped forced migrants’ lives as a governmental tool (rule by law), these same laws were simultaneously experienced as forms of care and gifts from the state.
In what follows, I investigate the workings of high-level presidential discretionary, executive decrees and ground-level bureaucratic encounters through ethnographic evidence. While numerous anthropological studies examined exceptional legal tools and the blurred boundaries between legality and illegality in state entailment (Das and Poole 2004; Biehl, Good, and Kleinman 2007), I aim to demonstrate how exceptional legal tools can be deployed as a form of positive power (Foucault 2003) and how everyday people enact hopes and yearnings (Jansen 2014) in allowing sovereign exceptions to take place, rather than viewing it as just a top-down homogeneous and unidirectional decision-making process.
I trace three dimensions of how post-2013 Egyptian exiles gained legal status in Turkey. Beginning with Turkey’s geopolitically driven migration policies toward Egypt, I then examine how Egyptian exiles leveraged this political context to pursue regularization. While these exceptional presidential decrees appeared discretionary from above, I show how they were both socially embedded within migrant communities and understood by many as expressions of state care rather than just legal instruments.

Post-2013 Egyptians in Istanbul and Turkey’s foreign policy with Egypt (2011–2021)
Turkey received mass waves of post-Arab revolution migrations, mainly from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Scholars have argued that Turkey has adopted different approaches for populations of each nationality, varying depending on Turkey’s geopolitical interest in the migrants’ country of origin, the scale of their migratory flows, and Turkish national politics and local check-balances. As a self-recognized “transit state” for migrants, Turkey follows a “geopolitical reasoning” not only in receiving migrants but also in its return and deportation policies, which intersects with its foreign policy interests and capabilities (Mencutek 2022).
Turkey followed a “humanitarian” foreign policy approach to pursue an influential role in the region, as exemplified by hosting mass waves of Syrians. Analysing the perceived value of accommodating particular forced migrant groups reveals a strong connection to national and geopolitical developments. In Turkey, the selective approach to issuing legal documents to displaced Egyptians initially served as diplomatic leverage against Egypt. Later, it became a gesture of bilateral goodwill, fundamentally shaping their everyday bureaucratic interactions and future migratory prospects.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) supported the 2011 Egyptian uprising, viewing it as a catalyst for democratization in the Arab world. The influx of Egyptians into Turkey occurred gradually between 2013 and 2021, with the post-2013 Egyptian presence in Istanbul receiving support from the AKP party. While most of these newcomers represented various factions within the political Islam spectrum, they were not limited to these groups. Significantly, more than half of my interlocutors had experienced political imprisonment, with their decision to migrate occurring either during their imprisonment or shortly after release, when heavy security harassment made continued residence in Egypt untenable. In this context, their urgency to settle down and find legal stability has increased and become imminent.
Unlike the Syrian case, which saw identifiable waves of forced migration, Egyptian migration to Turkey occurred through no defined mass waves or formal channels. Consequently, no established government policy framework was established to host asylum seekers from Egypt or manage their settlement and integration. Initial responses to regularize post-2013 Egyptian exiles were essentially arbitrary. The Turkish authorities gradually developed mechanisms to make Egyptian forced migrants legible. This process unfolded through what one of my interlocutors described as “‘aishwāʾiyyah munazzamah” (an ordered disorder), whereby some people were regularized through executive decrees from the President following mediation by community leaders with the state, while others obtained legal status through individual efforts and privileges, leaving many others stuck in limbos of temporary statuses or remaining undocumented.
Turkey’s condemnation of the military coup in Egypt enabled growing networks and connections between the AKP regime and members of the Egyptian diaspora. Even before the 2013 coup, connections had formed between various Egyptian political actors – including Muslim Brotherhood party members, parliament members, government ministers, academics, businesspersons and students – and AKP members. With the coup-led violence and the gradual displacement of Egyptians to Turkey, those networks were mobilized and strengthened. For example, in July 2013, a few days after the coup in Egypt, The Egypt Anti-Coup, Pro-Democracy Alliance was established in Turkey.[1] In late 2013, founding members of the Egyptian Building and Development Party met with the Turkish Minister of Interior to discuss the evolving violent situation in Egypt and the possibility of facilitating the issuing of “exceptional” entry visas to Egyptians fleeing the coup. I use the terms “exceptional” and “discretionary” interchangeably to refer to legal measures and statutes granted based on the expansive executive authority of decision makers who can determine the fate of noncitizens by awarding and/or denying legal statuses and setting conditions and duration of their stay at their own discretion rather than through strictly predetermined criteria. Since most Egyptians who went to Turkey came from the spectrum of political Islam, the AKP regime established “channels of communication” with groups among the Egyptian exiles in Istanbul. Istanbul became a hub for Egyptian opposition media, providing both platforms for dissent and employment for Egyptian families.
A significant realignment of regional powers has occurred in the MENA region, especially after the counter-revolutions in the Arab world (2013-present). Since 2020, Turkey has pursued normalization with several regional countries, including Egypt, particularly in the lead-up to the 2023 presidential elections. This evolving Turkey-Egypt relationship has raised concerns among displaced Egyptians in Istanbul about potential domestic consequences, particularly given the precarious legal positions of those lacking valid Egyptian passports and Turkish residence permits, putting them in an imminent state of deportability. In this context, the Turkish government began issuing exceptional legal statuses to Egyptian exiles while simultaneously initiating talks with Egypt. Egyptian mediators who approached the Turkish state sought both political recognition and legal legibility for their community, emphasizing their vulnerability to deportation. Their practice of “everyday diplomacy” (Marsden, Ibañez-Tirado, and Henig 2016) in seeking legal status was motivated by the constant threat of deportation, particularly if Egypt-Turkey relations normalized. In this way, individual quests for legal stability became entangled with broader state projects and regional geopolitical dynamics.
Navigating exceptional legal recognition
Community leaders from the Egyptian diaspora mobilized their connections among AKP members, parliamentarians, and state officials to seek regularization of their statuses (taswiyat al-awḍā). Since most displaced Egyptians in Turkey came from the Muslim Brotherhood, communication channels between Islamists and the AKP regime proved more accessible and effective. Over time, these leaders became key mediators between the state and other post-2013 Egyptians, representing their communities in state dealings and working to prevent deportations and secure legal residences. Through these interactions, an unprecedented space emerged where forced migrants could make demands on the AKP’s ruling state. Turkish politicians requested Egyptian mediators, political elite activists, and aspiring community leaders to organize themselves under NGOs or specific platforms to streamline communication. These organizations were tasked with submitting ‘lists’ of Egyptians who faced political barriers to returning to Egypt. Egyptian community initiatives and mediators then submitted these lists to sympathetic AKP officials who could seek presidential approval.
Most Istanbul-based Egyptian exiles held “short-term residence permits,” issued for tourism, investments, and medical treatments. These tourist residencies were typically issued for six-month to one-year periods without work authorization and requiring regular renewal. Given the precarious nature of this legal status, permit holders sought to secure longer stays through alternative statuses that could provide “legal stability”. One pathway toward stability was the long-term residence, known among post-2013 Egyptians as “the exceptional indefinite residence”. This permit was issued to foreigners with eight years of continuous residence in Turkey. The permit could be cancelled if the holder posed “a serious public security or public order threat” (Art. 45). While the Directorate General for Migration Management (DGMM) handled foreigners’ regularization, simultaneously, the DGMM implemented decisions from the Migration Policies Board and presidential decrees, giving them significant discretionary powers to modify or waive normal conditions for legal residencies.
The DGMM’s position between the Presidency and Ministry of Interior, which could override its functions through discretion, required post-2013 Egyptians to network and learn how to engage with government officials and AKP members. The formalization of this networking process made Turkey’s case unique: legal statuses were explicitly embedded in social relationships, with exceptional legal categories gaining legitimacy through institutionalized mediatory practices (Tuckett 2023). Upon initial approval, applicants could begin the formal process by submitting documents to a designated DGMM office in Istanbul. For post-2013 Egyptian exiles, the main (unwritten) condition was proving political persecution in Egypt that prevented return and demonstrating a lack of alternative residence options – similar to asylum criteria but processed through exceptional channels. Under these conditions, the standard eight-year residence requirement for the long-term status could be waived, making the residency genuinely exceptional. Like the long-term residence permits, access to Turkish nationality underwent significant changes affecting refugees and the concept of citizenship (Serdar 2023). Many of my interlocutors were granted or sought al-jinsīyah al-istithnā’īyah (the exceptional nationality) based on “exceptional states in the acquisition of Turkish citizenship” outlined in Turkish Citizenship Law No. 5901–2009 (Article 12). Significantly, this exceptional path waived standard naturalization requirements. However, the law also granted authorities unlimited administrative discretion (Telli 2022) to determine not only who could be naturalized, but also whose citizenship could be cancelled (Article 31–1) or deemed worthy of loss (Article 23–1, 24). Thus, those who gained nationality through exceptional means could lose it through similar exceptional processes.
Friendly sovereignty in migration governance
The AKP regime’s use of discretionary migration and citizenship tools (the presidential decrees) reflected broader patterns in autocratic immigration governance worldwide. Executive decrees in migrant management transcend the ill/liberal divide, appearing across various national contexts (Natter 2023). The post-2013 Egyptian case marks an evolution of this approach: exceptional measures aimed at permanent but temporary legalization, which remained routinized and politicized. Presidential decrees with the force of law intensified beyond any previous period in the republic’s history since the 2016 failed military coup. As Gökarıksel and Türem (2019, 186) argue, understanding how these decrees extended beyond emergency-related issues to target specific individuals requires examining the entanglements of law and politics in Turkey, which resulted in banal exceptionality.
For post-2013 Egyptian exiles seeking regularization through presidential decrees, the exception went beyond the purely legal space and became social and political factor. This represents a new pattern within the same “system of governance [which is] based on favours and exceptions” (Parla 2019, 114). Crucially, these (para-)legal processes generate forms of subjunctivization and pursuits of legibility, positioning the state as the ultimate forgiver while applicants await state forgiveness. These presidential decrees thus reproduce state sovereignty through its friendly, benevolent, and caring forms.
The citizenship and immigration laws and their exceptional applications maintained an ever-present form in my interlocutors’ lives. Rather than experiencing lawlessness, they encountered multiple legalities overarching their regularization attempts. What distinguished these exceptional applications was their convergence with Turkey’s shifting geopolitical interests, particularly in its relationship with Egypt. Turkey’s foreign policy toward Egypt thus became instrumental in shaping the migration governance of post-2013 Egyptians, serving as the context for deploying discretionary executive legal frameworks.
Political theorist Ted H. Miller (2022) argues that “the friendly sovereign” remains an underdeveloped notion in readings of Carl Schmitt. Miller argues that sovereignty manifests not merely through hostility but also through friendly acts: granting pardons, privileges, immunities, favors, or dispensations from legal duties to friends and supporters. My interlocutors understood Turkey’s political interests regarding Egypt and the region, yet simultaneously interpreted these exceptional legal statuses as recognition of their political struggle and resulting legal predicament. Despite – or perhaps because of – its ambiguity, many interlocutors perceived exceptional nationality and residency practices as forms of political aid and gifts, addressing their political predicaments. Accordingly, they understood that “the path of law” was socially and politically grounded, not the other way around. At the same time, the state used socio-political mediation and negotiations to address migrants’ legal status issues rather than working through established legal procedures.
In this context, a paralegal space emerged where the state rendered post-2013 exiles’ demands for legibility as exceptional yet attainable. The AKP government drew on exceptional arrangements to handle migrants’ demands and avoided recognizing such demands as justifiable rights under Turkey’s established immigration and citizenship law, as this would invite further paralegal solutions (Chatterjee 2006, 56). Post-2013 Egyptians had “structured expectations” and “reasonable reliances” (J. Williams 1991, 154) on the exceptional applications of the law, which worked temporally in their favor. Their longing for exceptional measures did not emerge in a vacuum; rather, all their legal aspirations were fundamentally grounded in these exceptional measures.
To conclude, the experiences of post-2013 Egyptian exiles in Istanbul highlight the complex interplay between geopolitics, state discretion, and the pursuit of legal stability in the context of forced migration. Turkey’s selective approach to regularizing displaced Egyptians, initially as diplomatic leverage and later as a gesture of goodwill, fundamentally shaped their everyday lives and future prospects. The use of exceptional legal measures, such as presidential decrees and discretionary citizenship policies, not only reflected Turkey’s shifting foreign policy interests but also created spaces for forced migrants to negotiate their legal status through community mobilization and “everyday diplomacy.” While these exceptional tools were often framed as gestures of state benevolence, they simultaneously reproduced state sovereignty and generated new forms of uncertainty and precarity for those seeking legal stability. Ultimately, the case of post-2013 Egyptians in Istanbul reveals how the entanglement of law, politics, and social relations can both constrain and enable the agency of forced migrants as they navigate the complex terrain of legal status in an ever-shifting geopolitical landscape.
Notes
[1] An Egyptian political alliance opposed to the coup led by General el-Sisi against Mohamed Morsi, the first elected Egyptian president, on July 3, 2013. It included political parties, Islamic movements, labour unions, revolutionary youth groups, and public figures.
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About the Author
Elsayed E. Abdelhamid is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. His doctoral dissertation is an ethnography of the pursuits of existential stability among post-2013 Egyptians exiles in Istanbul and Amsterdam. His research interests include politics of exile, state configurations, legacies of political violence, critical pedagogy, and the Arab revolutions.
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Citation: Elsayed E. Abdelhamid, The State’s Friendly Face? Post-2013 Egyptian Exiles and Turkey’s Exceptional Legal Tools, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 01.04.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/56306
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