ISN Security Watch, 5 Aug 08: Letters from Jordan: Iraqi Refugees in Limbo
....Jordan, which has issued legal residence permits to 60,000 Iraqi refugees, announced on 15 July that it would no longer grant residency to Iraqis. For the rest, staying in Jordan until a country grants them formal political asylum means submitting to a legal limbo and financial hardships in a place that is losing patience and growing increasingly inhospitable toward them.

Iraqi refugees now comprise more than 10 percent of Jordan's population, which has swelled from 5.2 million people before the war began to nearly 6 million people in just five years. The influx of refugees, along with the growing price of oil in a nation that has few natural resources of its own, has doubled the cost of food, transportation, public services and gas, according to a UNHCR report. Rent prices in some areas have nearly quadrupled. Many Jordanians blame Iraqis for the skyrocketing prices......