In this paper I extend the literature on ‘illegal’ migrant workers by connecting the macro-level discussion on policies to the lived experiences of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Lebanon. I analyse two seemingly contrasting categories of ‘illegal’ migrant workers. First, the MDWs working illegally and desperate to return home, who are unable to return because of the system of migration in Lebanon. Second, MDWs banned by their state from migrating to Lebanon but who choose devious ways to make the journey. I argue that despite their apparently disparate subject positions, both sets of migrant workers are ‘illegal’ because of an underlying paternalism in the policies of nation-states towards MDWs – the gendered construction of MDWs as workers who need both protection and surveillance. This paternalism, in turn, produces a class of ‘global exiles’ who are working and living in prolonged separation from their home. They are abandoned by their home countries but trapped without any rights as either workers or citizens in the host country.