At the nexus of the global policy push for inclusion of refugees into national education systems, steady urbanization trends among refugee and migrant populations, and rising xenophobia toward refugees, our study examines how refugee, national security, and education policies intersect to help or hinder urban refugee children's access to education in Kenya. We draw on semistructured interviews with humanitarian, government, and school-level actors and content analysis of global, regional, and national policies. Through a two-pronged theoretical framework that consists of punctuated equilibrium theory and securitization theory, we find that contradictory national policies across sectors inhibit policy implementation and urban refugees' abilities to realize their educational rights. Our findings, culminating in a visual conceptual framework of a policy pendulum, speak to the need to examine larger national and geopolitical factors and their influences on education policies for refugee inclusion in urban areas and beyond.