Undocumented people, by definition, lack the travel documents to leave the country legally, so if they are caught trying to leave they are arrested, detained again, and issued another white paper ordering them to leave the country within 30 days.65 This happens repeatedly. Efthalia Pappa, program supervisor of the Ecumenical Program for Refugees, observed, “The 30-day paper is a paradox: It tells the person to leave the country and then the police arrest that same person for trying to leave the country.”66 A 24-year-old Iraqi Kurd from Sulaymaniya interviewed while in detention in Petrou Ralli illustrates this paradox: They arrested me and put me in jail for three months and gave me a paper to leave in 30 days. I got this paper three times. I have been in this country for two years and I’ve spent one year in jail. Each time [they release me] I’m given a paper to leave the country, but I can’t leave because I have no [travel] documents. I want to leave the country, but I can’t.67 A 28-year-old Iraqi man, deeply scarred by a bomb attack in Iraq, told about being rearrested specifically for trying to leave Greece and being repeatedly detained, released, told to leave the country, caught trying to leave the country, and detained again: After 35 days [of detention], they gave me the paper saying I had to leave the country in one month. That was October 27, 2007. Since then I have tried three times to leave from Patras but been arrested and jailed each time, the first time for one day, then for three days, and the third time for three months. I just got out on May 21, 2008 with another paper telling me I had to leave the country in one month.68 65 The police expect that undocumented people will go to their embassies or consulates and obtain from them a laisser- passez or other travel document. 66 Human Rights Watch interview with Efthalia Pappa, program supervisor, Ecumenical Refugee Program, Athens, June 2, 2008. 67 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-49), Petrou Ralli, June 4, 2008. 68 Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld, B-22), Athens, May 28, 2008. The day after this interview when Human Rights Watch stopped at his place to talk with him again, we were told that he had left for Patras in a fourth attempt to leave Greece. Stuck in a Revolving Door 34