A bill to link identity cards and residence permits
Bahrain has stepped up its crackdown on illegal immigration over the past year, with the Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) reporting last week that the number of workers deported in 2023 rose 202.8 percent to 5,477, compared with 4,232 illegal workers arrested in the same period last year.
To continue this crackdown, Bahrain’s parliament unanimously approved amendments to the 2006 Identity Cards Law last week that aim to link migrants’ Smart Identity Cards (CPRs) to their residence permits. Bahraini identity cards are normally issued for five years.
The government plans to draft the amendments into formal law within a maximum of six months, after which it will be submitted to both Parliament and the Parliamentary Council for review.
It is worth noting that the new amendments formalize an existing practice. In recent years, the government has quietly linked the provision of some services to the validity of a work permit. Migrant-Rights.org has previously documented cases in Bahrain where migrants with valid CPRs but whose work permits had expired were denied medical care or arrested at medical facilities for being in the country illegally.
Both the Ministry of the Interior and the Agency for Information and Electronic Government Affairs supported the lawmakers’ amendment, but said the practice is already in place whenever work permits are revoked under the LMRA, adding that the policy aims to “prevent illegal immigrants from accessing health care, banking and other services.”
Notably, Bahrain’s National Human Rights Institution stated that the amendments “are not contrary to human rights”, but expressed concern that undocumented migrants will be denied access to emergency services such as health care.
The merging of ID cards with residence and work permits, which are essential for accessing essential services in Bahrain, overlooks a critical reality: many migrants find themselves in irregular situations due to the actions of employers who control work and residence permit status under the kafala system.
In some documented cases, migrant women facing the revocation of their work permits have chosen to give birth at home, putting their own and their children’s safety at risk. Moreover, desperate migrants use other people’s ID cards to access medical services, but the data in their medical files is not their own, which could put them at risk of medical misconduct.
