Returning to Syria Between Legal Protection and Rebuilding a Life
How Integration, Family, and Institutional Trust Shape Return Intentions
Louay AL-Daher
DAMI Senter — Working Paper No. 05/2026
24.09.2026

When Syrian refugees consider returning, several questions intersect: whether they still need protection, whether they can continue residing in their host country, whether they want to return, and whether they have the means to do so. These questions concern the same person, but their answers may differ.

Someone may hope to return while lacking housing or financial resources. Another person may be able to afford the journey but postpone it because of children’s education, caregiving responsibilities, or concerns about institutional treatment. Strong social and professional ties in a host country may also coexist with aspirations to return in the future.

This working paper examines these relationships through a selective critical review of legal texts and social research, drawing particularly on studies of Syrians in Türkiye, Lebanon, and Germany. It connects the legal assessment of protection and residence with the social circumstances in which return intentions develop.

Four Questions for Understanding Return

The paper organises its analysis around four questions:

• Does the person continue to need protection?
• What is the legal basis for continued residence in the host country?
• Does the person wish to return, when, and under what conditions?
• Does the person have the practical capacity to return?

Keeping these questions distinct prevents conclusions from being transferred between them without supporting evidence. A desire to return does not establish that conditions are safe. A preference to stay does not, by itself, determine whether refugee status should continue or cease. The legal basis for residence also requires separate examination, since a residence entitlement and refugee status are not necessarily identical.

In assessing whether the circumstances underlying refugee recognition have ceased, UNHCR’s guidance emphasises fundamental and durable change, the restoration of effective protection, and individual protection needs. Political change therefore requires careful examination rather than an assumption that its legal consequences are the same for everyone. UNHCR guidance on cessation of refugee status

Wanting to Return Does Not Set a Departure Date

An expression such as “I want to return” can convey different things. It may describe attachment to a place, an imagined future, an intention conditional on improved circumstances, or a plan already supported by practical preparations.

The paper distinguishes general aspirations, conditional or time-specific intentions, preparations, and actual return. These are related outcomes, but there is no inevitable progression from one to the next.

Research by Müller-Funk and Fransen illustrates why the distinction matters. Present aspirations and aspirations for a conditional future may reflect different circumstances and life goals. Wanting to return after conditions change is not equivalent to being ready to return under existing conditions. Müller-Funk and Fransen, 2023

Surveys of return intentions consequently need to be read alongside their questions and time horizons. An answer about returning “one day” cannot automatically support a prediction of departure within the next few months. Likewise, an intention conditional on safety identifies a requirement set by the respondent; it does not demonstrate that this requirement has been met.

Integration Can Support Staying and Enable Movement

Integration encompasses employment, language, social relationships, belonging, and experiences of discrimination. These dimensions may relate differently to return.

A study of Syrians in Germany found a positive relationship between social integration and intentions to stay. Research in Lebanon, meanwhile, found that better financial and social resources in the host country were associated with preparations for return. The studies examine different contexts and outcomes, so their findings should not be treated as a direct contradiction. Hannafi and Marouani, 2023; Alrababah et al., 2023

The paper proposes an interpretation for further investigation: relationships may make staying more desirable, while resources may make movement more feasible. This is an analytical synthesis, rather than a causal mechanism jointly tested by the two studies.

The distinction also matters for policy. Weakening someone’s stability in a host country cannot simply be assumed to improve their capacity to return. Evaluating that capacity requires attention to resources, available alternatives, and the conditions under which a person could rebuild a life.

Families May Have Different Needs and Preferences

Return decisions may involve family members living in different countries, with different responsibilities and expectations. The location of employment may not coincide with the location of care. Parents and children may also evaluate their futures differently.

The paper draws on a qualitative study involving 50 women heading Syrian refugee households in Lebanon, interviewed between December 2024 and February 2025. The study highlights caregiving responsibilities, perceived gender-related risks, and concerns about daughters’ futures in accounts of hesitation about return. Its purposive sample offers insight into these women’s experiences, without representing all Syrian households or directly observing negotiations among every family member. Diab, 2026

This evidence supports a more careful approach to the household as a unit of analysis. One person’s response should not automatically be interpreted as a shared family preference. Understanding a decision requires asking who participates in it, who controls resources, and who bears its consequences.

Institutional Trust Concerns the Exercise of Rights

Thinking about return also involves expectations about institutions. Will documents be accessible? Can people obtain services, enforce rights, and seek remedies when those rights are violated?

The paper treats institutional trust as an expectation of dependable treatment. It distinguishes this expectation from political support and from a legal finding that effective protection exists.

Research on Syrian returnees examines the gap between formal citizenship and the practical exercise of rights, drawing primarily on interviews conducted in 2024. These accounts help illuminate experiences of reintegration, but should not be presented as an assessment of conditions beyond their data collection period. Dinçer and Şahin-Mencütek, 2025

The analytical implication is to examine institutional practice and people’s expectations separately before exploring their relationship. Announced guarantees do not establish that people trust them, while personal trust does not replace independent verification of protection.

What the Paper Contributes

The paper offers a framework for connecting rights, resources, relationships, and expectations while keeping conclusions within the limits of their evidence.

Its central argument is that return intentions cannot independently determine whether protection needs have ceased, just as legal status alone cannot explain an individual’s decision. It also shows why actual movement should be distinguished from sustainable settlement, and why the experiences of returnees cannot automatically reveal the preferences of people who have not returned.

This is a selective critical review. It does not forecast return numbers, assess current safety in Syria, or estimate the independent causal effect of each factor. Its contribution is to clarify how legal and social evidence can inform one another and where further research is needed.

Understanding return requires attention to what people hope for, what they can practically do, and what their legal protection requires. Bringing these questions together makes it possible to examine return as a process of rebuilding a life.

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Legal Protection and Return Intentions among Syrian Refugees: Integration, Family, and Institutional Trust

Louay AL-Daher
DAMI Institute — Working Paper No. 05/2026

The full paper includes the legal framework, review methodology, social analysis, discussion, two analytical tables, and 19 reference entries.

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This article was written by the author, and the views expressed are the author’s own. They do not necessarily represent the official views of DAMI Senter.