Statelessness in the United States: A Study to Estimate and Profile the US Stateless Population

Introduction

The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (“the 1954 Convention”) defines a “stateless person” as “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” ³ This definition — which has acquired customary law status according to the International Law Commission (ILC 2006, 36) — refers to the de jure stateless (those stateless by law), in contrast to the de facto stateless, a term not defined by treaty or international instrument (UNHCR 2014g, 5). ⁴ The 1954 Convention also enumerates obligations and responsibilities of Contracting States and stateless persons, and the rights of the stateless. ⁵

The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (“the 1961 Convention”) seeks to prevent statelessness by establishing “international norms relating to nationality” and, thus, to reduce statelessness throughout time. ⁶ In particular, it requires states “to grant citizenship to children born on their territory, or born to their nationals abroad, who would otherwise be stateless.” ⁷ It also prohibits “the withdrawal of citizenship from States’ nationals — either through loss, renunciation, or deprivation of nationality — when doing so would result in statelessness.” ⁸ The 1961 Convention was drafted with the understanding that states “maintain the right to elaborate the content of their nationality laws” but must comply with international human rights standards. ⁹

In the United States, the term nationality refers to a person “owing permanent allegiance” to the country, whether a citizen or noncitizen. ¹⁰ Beyond US citizens, the term mostly applies to persons born in outlying US possessions, particularly America Samoa and Swains Island. ¹¹

For the purposes of this study, CMS applies the internationally recognized definition of a stateless person reflected in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention: “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” The term persons at risk of statelessness denotes those who have “difficulties furnishing relevant proof to establish their nationality” and are therefore “at risk of not being considered nationals by a State” (UN 2018, 7). ¹² As noted in this report, due to serious insufficiencies in available data on either of these populations in the United States, the study is unable to identify with precision the number of people who meet these definitions, and it is not always possible to distinguish between the two populations. As such, the CMS report refers broadly to populations who are “potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.”

CMS’s estimates of US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness include persons who may have gained nationality in their country of origin or in a third country. Its estimates do not, however, include US citizens. Some stateless persons may ultimately become US citizens, but, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons provides, statelessness determinations are not “predictive exercises” regarding who may or may not become a citizen, and stateless persons may be “partway through a process of acquiring nationality” (UNHCR 2014g, 20).

UNHCR has commissioned several stateless mapping exercises for other nations. ¹³ This study differs from those UNHCR studies due to a range of factors. With perhaps one exception (the United Kingdom), these other states lack the diversity of the US foreign-born population and of residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of these studies do not seek to estimate the nation’s stateless population. In addition, they rely on tools to identify the stateless — like local or central population registries — that are not available and not likely to be available in the United States. ¹⁴

US administrative data on immigrants and refugees may be useful in identifying some categories of stateless persons, but have severe limitations. Federal immigration datasets track “nationality,” but they may or may not include a dropdown for statelessness. The nationality variable typically lists persons of “unknown” nationality, a designation that includes but is not exclusive to those who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. In addition, the federal government has restricted the public’s access to relevant federal datasets and to systems manuals that could explain codes, variables, and data entry procedures. Furthermore, immigration- and refugee-related data would cover only those stateless persons (not all) who come to the attention of federal officials. Nor do these data yield complete or reliable estimates of those known to federal officials.

Based on these data limitations, CMS opted to make the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) data the centerpiece of its profiles of populations that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States. Among possible data sources, the ACS provides the most detailed demographic, social, and economic data, and it covers the widest number and array of US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. CMS supplemented the ACS with administrative data on refugee and immigrant populations encountered by federal officials.

The ACS covers roughly 1 percent of the US population. Each year, it gathers detailed data — including for non-naturalized foreign-born persons — for all states and for cities, counties, metropolitan statistical areas, and Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), a US Census–defined geographic area of 100,000 people or more.

CMS queried ACS data on foreign-born noncitizens using characteristics from the profiles of stateless groups from around the world whose members are or may be in the United States. It developed these profiles based on UNHCR reports, government and academic literature, survey responses, and interviews with stateless persons. Based on the ACS data, CMS estimates that there were 198,000 non–US citizens among the 2017 US resident population who fit its profiles of potentially stateless persons or those potentially at risk of statelessness. ¹⁵ Some profiles, however, included variables — such as some ethnicities, languages, and countries of origin — that are not available through the ACS, thus precluding estimates for these populations based on the ACS.

To complement its ACS estimates, CMS secured data from the US Department of State’s (DOS) Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS), a database that tracks the admission of refugees for resettlement. WRAPS does not permit the calculation of estimates for all groups for which CMS compiled ACS-based estimates, but it does permit estimates of some populations for which ACS estimates were zero or could not be calculated. CMS’s analysis of WRAPS data revealed an estimated 117,370 refugees who fit the profiles of potentially stateless persons or those potentially at risk of statelessness, including 20,320 from profiles for which ACS estimates were zero or not possible to produce.

Adding CMS’s ACS estimates and its WRAPS estimates — for profiles for which ACS estimates were zero or not possible to produce — yielded an overall estimate of roughly 218,000 US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. Because CMS’s WRAPS estimates cover populations not in the ACS data, its overall estimates do not “double count” those who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.

The 218,000 figure should be used with caution. On one hand, many of those included in these provisional estimates may not in fact be stateless. Some may have obtained nationality in their own country or in a third country. Others may be stateless but will ultimately be able to obtain nationality in the United States. On the other hand, this figure excludes some US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. In short, it represents a population of non–US citizens who fall within profiles of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.

For information purposes, CMS also analyzed federal immigration data — some publicly available and some provided by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University — on populations listed as “stateless” or of “unknown” nationality. These data included populations that (1) sought asylum “affirmatively” (not in removal proceedings) before US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), (2) sought asylum “defensively” (i.e., while in removal proceedings), (3) were placed in removal proceedings between 2001 and 2018, and (4) were in immigrant detention in 2018 (TRAC 2019d).

These data sources do not capture the total number of foreign-born persons who come to the attention of federal agencies. Nor do they count stateless persons not encountered by federal immigration officials. In addition, some persons may be incorrectly characterized in these datasets as nationals of particular states. The report provides CMS’s analysis of these immigration data, not to add to its estimates of those who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness, but to present a fuller picture of certain populations and to highlight the limitations of US administrative data.

Section I of the report outlines the project’s methodology. Section II describes the causes of statelessness, the legal context faced by stateless persons in the United States, CMS’s profiles of populations that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States, and descriptions of certain populations not included in CMS’s estimates. Section III provides provisional estimates of select populations that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. It also sets forth the strengths and limitations of the data used to make these estimates, and the numbers of persons listed as stateless or of unknown nationality in US immigration and refugee datasets. Section IV describes the challenges facing stateless persons in the United States, drawing heavily from CMS’s interviews with stateless persons and its online survey. Section V recommends ways to improve data collection to better identify stateless persons. It also outlines some of the measures set forth in the 1961 Convention, US legislation, and academic and policy literature to prevent and reduce statelessness, including a designated path to citizenship for stateless persons. In addition, it sets forth a series of policy recommendations to protect and integrate stateless persons.

Section I: Methodology

The stateless population is difficult to identify in US government data and, more broadly, in US society in part because no government entity makes statelessness determinations or systematically collects information on stateless populations. Few (if any) federal immigration officials who encounter stateless persons are trained or tasked to identify them. Failing to look for stateless persons, federal, state, and local governments fail to find them. The lack of a designated path for stateless persons to register or to secure legal status, in turn, makes stateless persons less likely to disclose their status and increases their sense of isolation.

To attempt to map statelessness in the United States, CMS developed a methodology that accounted for these factors. It incorporates quantitative and qualitative research approaches to attempt to estimate the size of the population of potentially stateless persons or those potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States, to profile distinct populations, and to document their situations, challenges, and lived experiences.

Qualitative Methods

After conducting preliminary research, CMS convened a group of 28 statelessness experts in October 2017 to discuss the sources, strengths, and limitations of data on statelessness; identify particular concentrations of stateless persons; and examine CMS’s proposed methodology. The group included government officials, statisticians, analysts, scholars, human rights experts, legal professionals, and stateless persons. In preparation for the meeting, CMS produced a literature review that included UNHCR mapping statelessness studies for other countries, academic articles, and policy reports. Prior to this study, the stateless population in the United States was unofficially estimated to be around 4,000 persons (UNHCR 2015a, 9), a figure extrapolated from the number of stateless asylum seekers during a 10-year period. As a way to focus the discussion, CMS provided its draft profiles of populations in the United States that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness to its project advisors, who fine-tuned profile descriptions and identified additional populations to include.

To ensure that the research met the highest ethical standards, CMS sought a full board review of its qualitative methods — which included an online survey and in-depth interviews with stateless individuals — from Syracuse University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). As part of the IRB application process, interviewers completed the relevant Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Web-based training program for human subjects, as required by Syracuse University. CMS submitted the interview protocol, survey, informed consent form, phone and email scripts, and outreach materials to the IRB as part of its application.

Following the expert advisory group meeting, CMS developed an online survey (Supplemental Appendix 1) for community-based organizations (CBOs), legal service providers, ethnic organizations, faith-based entities, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that may represent, serve, or otherwise encounter stateless persons. The survey had four overarching purposes: to (1) identify stateless persons to interview, (2) supplement CMS’s stateless profiles, (3) develop a fuller understanding of the causes and challenges of statelessness, and (4) expand the growing network of service providers and stateless persons who could educate the public on this issue.

The survey asked non-identifying details about stateless individuals, such as the causes of their statelessness, immigration benefits they sought, possession of national identity documents, and basic demographic information like age, place of birth, ethnicity, race, religion, and languages spoken. CMS initially circulated a draft of the survey to large legal and refugee service networks that (it believed) would be likely to encounter stateless persons. These included Kids in Need of Defense, Catholic Charities Community Services of the Archdiocese of New York, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration, Refugee Council USA member agencies, and the Vera Institute for Justice. Ultimately, it shared the survey with more than 340 organizations that work with immigrants and refugees, focusing on communities that the project advisory group identified as potentially having high concentrations of stateless persons. CMS also followed up via phone calls with these entities to encourage responses. ¹⁶ Forty-one of these organizations reported having worked with stateless people in recent years.

Thirty-seven agencies fully completed the survey. Twenty-eight of these organizations reported providing legal services to immigrants. Five provided resettlement and integration assistance to refugees. Eleven reported that they work with stateless individuals a few times a year, four at least once a month, two on a weekly basis, and one every day. The 37 organizations reported having contact with more than 45 stateless persons, from 32 countries and territories and representing more than 25 ethnic groups. Palestinians deemed to be stateless by these agencies represented the largest group (seven persons) described in the survey. Supplemental Appendix 2 provides a short description of survey respondents focused on the causes of their statelessness and their legal status in the United States.

CMS also conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 48 stateless persons in Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; and Manchester and Concord, New Hampshire. To identify respondents, CMS used a snowball sampling method. In particular, it contacted CBOs and NGOs to inform them about the project and request their support to locate potential interviewees. Given the vulnerability and marginalization of stateless persons, CMS needed to rely on the trust and rapport of these organizations with the relevant communities to establish contact with potential respondents. United Stateless, a national organization led by stateless persons, helped CMS to locate interviewees for this project.

Pervasive anti-immigrant rhetoric in the public sphere and harsh enforcement policies made it difficult to obtain a high number of interviewees. Some organizations were unwilling to cooperate due to the perception of risk for participants, despite assurances of full anonymity. Even on occasions when organizational staff wished to cooperate, some organizations reported receiving no response from members or clients to participate in the study, which they attributed to the fear engendered by the current US administration’s immigration and refugee policies and its anti-immigrant rhetoric. Supplemental Appendix 3 contains the interview questionnaire.

The CMS research team also conducted several interviews by phone with individuals in other locations. The interviews provided insights into the lived experiences and challenges of stateless persons, and supplemented the CMS profiles of the potentially stateless or those potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States. Section IV of the report highlights insights from these interviews on the difficulties and challenges facing stateless persons in the United States. ¹⁷

The semistructured interview instrument included questions on demographic background, causes of statelessness, immigration status, migration history, conditions before and after coming to the United States, experience with US immigration authorities, and support needs. As necessary, interpreters facilitated the interviews, which took place between May and December 2018. The interviews began with a description of the project, and review and signing of the consent forms. These steps allowed CMS to underscore the benefits, risks, and voluntary nature of the project, and the fact that participants could withdraw consent at any time and their identity would remain protected.

Quantitative Methods

After reviewing multiple immigration-related data sources, CMS selected the ACS as the most comprehensive source of data on US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. The ACS is a nationally representative survey that gathers detailed social and economic data on approximately 3.5 million US households each year. CMS distilled its population profiles of those potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness into discrete characteristics that aligned with variables contained in the ACS. These characteristics included country of birth, year of entry, ancestry, and language. It then used these (profile) characteristics to query ACS data on foreign-born US residents who had not naturalized.

To supplement ACS data, CMS sought immigration and refugee-related administrative data on noncitizens who shared some of the characteristics of CMS’s stateless profiles and of those designated as “stateless” or of “unknown” nationality. In particular, it gathered publicly available data on refugee admissions from WRAPS, an interactive computer system used by DOS’s Refugee Processing Center that “process[es] and track[s] the movement of refugees…to the US for resettlement under the US Refugee Admissions Program” (RPC n.d.). This interactive data tool contains data on refugees’ country of birth, admission date, religion, ethnicity, age, education, and native language. These variables match (in part) the characteristics identified in CMS’s stateless profiles. The WRAPS system does not permit cross-tabulations of admitted refugees by ethnicity, nationality, language, and other characteristics. CMS researchers requested detailed cross-tabulations of WRAPS data but did not receive them.

In addition, CMS compiled data — collected by TRAC — from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) on asylum seekers and others in removal proceedings. These data include information on custody status, relief from removal, case outcome, country of birth, and case year. They do not, however, include year of entry and other important characteristics identified in the profiles. In addition, CMS reviewed USCIS data on “affirmative” asylum seekers (those not in removal proceedings). It also obtained data, compiled by TRAC, of every person in immigrant detention in 2018.

CMS also submitted a far more extensive data request on potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness US residents that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had encountered through its immigration admission, benefit, and enforcement programs. It sought data, for example, on persons ordered removed, but who remained in immigrant detention or who had been released from custody under an order of supervision. ¹⁸ CMS also requested counts of admitted nonimmigrants, lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and refugees who had been identified as stateless or who matched the profiles developed by CMS. CMS also approached the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to obtain data on stateless refugees and asylees who accessed ORR-funded benefits and services. CMS did not receive any of the data it requested from DHS or ORR.

CMS did not conduct individual status determinations of persons meeting its profiles of potentially stateless persons or those at risk of statelessness, or of the persons it interviewed. Statelessness must be determined on a case-by-case basis. These determinations require extensive knowledge of the individual’s circumstances and the relevant nationality and citizenship laws in their states of origin and prior residence. As a result, the CMS report identifies persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.

Section II: Causes of Statelessness, the US Legal Context, and Profiles of Potentially Stateless US Residents or Those Potentially at Risk of Statelessness

Statelessness — not being considered “a national by any State under the operation of its law” ¹⁹ — has many causes. It can occur when a state dissolves into two or more states, and residents cannot secure citizenship under the restrictive and sometimes discriminatory laws of the new states, or if the successor states lack the administrative capacity to register their residents or do not afford them sufficient time to register. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, for example, and the subsequent implementation of new citizenship laws in successor states created a significant stateless population (Helton 1996; UNHCR and OSJI 2012; Fullerton 2014; ISI 2014). Similarly, certain individuals from the former Yugoslavia and Ethiopian-born persons of Eritrean descent could be stateless due to revisions to citizenship laws following state succession (ISI 2014).

I was born in Estonia in 1981.…If you were born before 1990 in Estonia, in order for you to have automatically citizenship of Estonia by birth, either one of your parents had to be Estonian citizen. My mother was born in Russia, but she moved to Estonia before I was born. My father was born in Ukraine.

I grew up there until 1999. I never lived anywhere else. I had this “Alien Passport” in Estonia. I’m thinking this is also my fault. I could have become Estonian citizen but it never really bothered me because I considered that country as my own and I was also too young to understand. [When I was in the United States,] I applied for passport, and I received a letter from the Consulate telling me that the fact that I was born in Estonia does no longer grant me any rights there.

As of 2019, women in 25 countries cannot confer nationality on their children (UNHCR 2019a). This can lead to statelessness for children born to a native-born mother and a foreign father, particularly if the father is stateless. Some countries also require that a child’s father and mother be married to confer the father’s citizenship to a child, resulting in the statelessness of children born out of wedlock (UNHCR and OSJI 2012). In some countries, foreign-born women lose their citizenship on the dissolution of their marriage, sometimes rendering them and their children stateless. In these and other circumstances, statelessness can be inherited.

A mother can’t pass her citizenship down to her children, only a father could. [My] father is stateless. He is considered Bidoon. His children as soon as they’re born, they’re Bidoon. They don’t get rights, they don’t get anything like Kuwaiti citizens. [When I approached the embassy to obtain a passport], they told me that since [my] father is not a Kuwaiti citizen, then [I] cannot apply for the passport. I try to argue that my mother is a Kuwaiti citizen, and they’re like no, you have to follow your father.

Stateless woman born in Kuwait

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which maintains a global database on birth registration (UNICEF 2017), reports lower than average rates of registration in some developing countries, for certain ethnic and religious minorities, in remote and rural areas, and for children from poor households and with uneducated mothers (UNICEF 2013). Some unregistered migrants may find themselves “doubly undocumented,” that is, without identity documents indicating their nationality in their home state or in their current state of residence. Exacerbating this problem, some countries also make it difficult to register births abroad by requiring a return visit, exorbitant fees, or registration within a short window of time (UNHCR and OSJI 2012; Price 2013).

Similarly, some persons lack the documentation to prove their place of birth. This may occur due to weak civil registry systems, lack of access to government offices and services, extreme poverty, or rapid flight (Price 2013). Children born to refugees or asylum seekers may not be able to secure identity documents and prove their nationality if they cannot return to their countries of origin or contact the government because they fear persecution (ibid.).

The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness requires Contracting States to prevent and reduce statelessness by addressing several of these situations. These problems persist in the United States, however, which for the reasons explained below is home to stateless persons in most, if not all, of these categories.

The US Legal Context

Generous US citizenship policies — anchored by the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — operate as a strong check against statelessness for those born in the United States. For this reason, this report primarily covers US residents who migrated to the United States and are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. As discussed, these persons have not yet become naturalized US citizens, whether due to the lack of an available legal avenue, the inability to meet the requirements for permanent residence or citizenship, extended processing delays or backlogs, or other reasons. Some US residents may have lost their nationality while living in the United States.

The US Refugee Act of 1980 ²² sought to harmonize US law with the international standards for refugee protection set forth in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. ²³ The United States has not ratified the 1954 Convention or the 1961 Convention, however, and it lacks a designated legal framework on statelessness (Corgan 2012; Baluarte 2015), including a facilitated path to citizenship. Stateless persons in the United States must instead meet the requirements of US immigration and naturalization law to secure nationality. Although generous in some respects, US law offers very limited and often protracted paths to immigration status, permanent residence, ²⁴ and naturalization.

There is only one dedicated program, “registry,” available for persons who lack immigration status (the “undocumented”). To qualify, an undocumented person must have lived continuously in the United States since January 1, 1972 (at least 48 years); have good moral character; not be ineligible for citizenship; and be otherwise “admissible.” ²⁵

Undocumented persons or temporary residents ²⁶ can secure LPR status based on a close family relationship to a US citizen or LPR, through sponsorship by an employer, or if they fit in other, narrower legal categories (Bier 2019, 16). Family-based immigration is not available to persons without a qualifying family relationship, however, and employment-based immigration is not possible for those without a sponsoring employer or who do not fit the narrow employment preferences, which afford (for example) only 5,000 visas for “unskilled workers” per year.

The process of securing a visa can take decades. Application processing times (for approval of a visa) averaged more than 18 months in 2018, and the average wait for a visa to become available for an intending immigrant was 5 years and 8 months in 2018 (Bier 2019). The length of backlogs varies based on “the interplay between numerical limits for all family-based preference categories (226,000) and each preference category [category of qualifying family relationship], per country limits, existing backlogs, and ongoing demand” (Wheeler 2019). For some of the 3.7 million persons mired in backlogs, the projected waiting period is 60 to 70 years (Kerwin and Warren 2019a; Wheeler 2019).

Moreover, a person seeking admission or adjustment to LPR status may be found inadmissible as a likely “public charge,” for health-related reasons, for past immigration violations, on criminal or security grounds, and for other reasons. ²⁷ The current administration has issued a rule that would significantly expand the “public charge” grounds of inadmissibility (Kerwin, Warren, and Nicholson 2018), and a “presidential proclamation” that would deny LPR status to those without qualifying health insurance or who lack the income to obtain it (Gelatt and Greenberg 2019). Immigrants lack health insurance at high rates, typically because their employers do not provide it (ibid.). These measures, if implemented, would block hundreds of thousands of (mostly) low-income immigrants, particularly those who would otherwise qualify for family-based visas, from securing permanent residence each year (Kerwin and Warren 2019b).

To naturalize, applicants must be at least age 18, have been an LPR for at least 5 years (3 years for the spouse of a US citizen), have been continuously present in the United States for at least 30 months of the 5 years preceding the date of filing, be a person of good moral character, and be attached to the principles of the US Constitution. ²⁸ They must also be able to speak, read, and write in English, and pass a US history and civics test, ²⁹ with certain exceptions based on age, long-term permanent residency, and disability or impairment. ³⁰ Many LPRs cannot meet these requirements or afford the $725 fee (which includes biometric screening). Like those seeking LPR status, naturalization-eligible persons face significant and growing application processing delays, an average of 10.2 months in fiscal year (FY) 2018 (Boyd and Chen 2019).

Moreover, the current administration has issued a proposed rule that would increase the fees for immigration petitions and applications, particularly for naturalization and in cases involving adjustment to LPR status, and it has separately proceeded to make the fee waiver process more restrictive and onerous. These measures would price out large numbers of immigrants from the possibility of permanent residence and citizenship (Kerwin and Warren 2019b).

Refugees and asylees can adjust to LPR status a year after being resettled or after being granted asylum. ³¹ Thus, they potentially enjoy a faster path to LPR status and citizenship than most immigrants. They may still be found inadmissible for committing a crime or for other reasons, ³² however, or they may not be able to satisfy the English language or other requirements to naturalize.

Persons in removal proceedings can avail themselves of only very limited forms of relief from removal (Kerwin 2018). To qualify for one of the most common forms of relief, cancellation of removal, non-LPRs must establish that they (1) have lived continuously in the United States for at least 10 years, (2) possess good moral character, and (3) have not been convicted of any of a laundry list of crimes, and that (4) their removal would cause “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to their US citizen or LPR spouse, parent, or child. ³³ Even if a non-LPR can meet these requirements, immigration judges can still exercise discretion to deny them relief.

In short, some stateless persons may not qualify for legal status or protection, including asylum (Fullerton 2014). Stateless persons who enter the United States as refugees or nonimmigrants (for a fixed purpose and temporary period) may not be able to adjust to LPR status, or they may qualify in categories so backlogged that they will not live long enough to receive a visa. Some stateless LPRs may not be able to meet the criteria for citizenship. Others may be placed in removal proceedings.

A small number of formerly stateless persons may have become US citizens, but then lost their citizenship through denaturalization due to fraud or past errors in their immigration applications (Robertson and Manta 2018). Denaturalization has become a far higher priority for the current US administration, compared to past administrations (Robertson and Manta 2019, 404). ³⁴

Some nations offer extensive consular services to their nationals in the United States, which can include assistance in securing a passport, issuance of an identity card, birth registry (typically for children of foreign nationals born in the United States), and extensive protection and integration services. These services can help to establish a US resident’s nationality, but not to provide nationality to those without it. To obtain a passport or identity card, nationals must still prove their nationality (US GAO 2004, 11; Halling 2014). ³⁵

Profiles of Populations That Are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness in the United States

It is impossible to determine statelessness without exhaustive, individual screening. Legal screenings of persons in US detention centers, for example, or of persons who self-identify as undocumented, regularly find persons with derivative citizenship (Wong et al. 2014, 292; MRS/USCCB and CMS 2015, 163). ³⁶ Similar screening programs, particularly of populations in CMS’s profiles, would identify significant numbers of stateless persons. Yet some community groups interviewed for this project, which serve stateless persons, incorrectly believe that this problem no longer exists in their communities. Like US undocumented residents, many stateless people may not realize that they are stateless until they reach a certain age, or they may not realize that they are eligible to pursue legal status and, ultimately, a path to citizenship.

The size and diversity of the US foreign-born population suggest that a wide range of people who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness may be living in the United States. Such individuals can arrive in the United States as refugees, as temporary visa holders or with other temporary statuses, as permanent residents, or through irregular channels. CMS identified the following profiles of stateless populations in the United States based on a review of available literature, ³⁷ consultations with experts on statelessness, and interviews with stateless persons. As stated, per the 1954 Convention, a “stateless person” is defined as someone “who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” The term “at risk of statelessness” denotes those who have “difficulties furnishing relevant proof to establish their nationality” and who are therefore “at risk of not being considered nationals by a State” (UN 2011, 5). CMS considers members of the groups profiled below to be potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. Members of these groups may possess the nationality of their country of origin or may have acquired nationality in a third country. They may also be on a path to US citizenship but have not naturalized. CMS cannot determine the exact likelihood or risk of statelessness for each profile, although some groups are likely to have much higher incidences of statelessness than others.

Many stateless people may not realize that they are stateless until they reach a certain age, or they may not realize that they are eligible to pursue legal status and, ultimately, a path to citizenship.

Europe and Eurasia

The Middle East and North Africa

Asia and the South Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

The Americas

Additional Considerations for Stateless Populations or Those at Risk of Statelessness

This section discusses several populations in the United States that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness, but are not included as separate categories in CMS’s estimates. These groups include:

“Doubly undocumented” individuals who lack documentation of birth or nationality in both the United States and their countries of origin;

Some individuals in these categories may also fit in the profiles above.

Section III: Estimates of those who are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness

Sources of Data and Tentative Estimates of US Stateless Populations

This section provides provisional estimates and profiles of populations who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States. Data limitations preclude definitive estimates of the populations set forth in CMS’s profiles, much less an aggregate estimate of the US stateless population. CMS’s provisional estimates come from two main sources, the American Community Survey and refugee- and immigration-related administrative data, particularly WRAPS data. This section describes these sources of data and offers a brief summary of UNHCR mapping statelessness studies in other nations.

American Community Survey

The ACS is an annual individual-level survey conducted by the US Census Bureau. Its large sample size, thorough geographic coverage, and high response rate allow CMS researchers to provide provisional estimates and profiles of several populations that are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness in the United States. Unlike administrative data, the ACS can be used to estimate the potentially stateless or those potentially at risk of statelessness, even if they have never applied for asylum, been granted refugee status, or come to the attention of US immigration enforcement agencies. It is thus likely to include individuals who became stateless following their entry in the United States, as well as persons who entered the United States without sufficient documents.

The ACS is based on a representative sample of the US population: 3.5 million households in all US Census tracts across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. ⁴⁴ From 2013 to 2017, each round of the survey had a response rate of 90 percent or higher (US Census Bureau 2019c), ensuring broad coverage of the US population. That said, exact response rates vary from year to year. Given the likely small size of many potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness populations, CMS based its provisional estimates on 5-year combined ACS data spanning 2013–2017 (US Census Bureau 2019a, table S1501). The 5-year microdata contain more than 15 million individual records, permitting the identification of groups with a low incidence in the overall population, including stateless groups. ⁴⁵

To arrive at its estimates, CMS tabulated counts of individuals whose countries of birth, ethnic backgrounds, birth years, years of arrival, and language proficiencies match the CMS profiles of persons in the United States who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. For example, in the case of ethnic Nepali Bhutanese, CMS counted populations born in Bhutan that arrived in the United States between 1986 and 2017 (the most recent year for which data are available) and listed their ancestry as Nepali or their language spoken at home as Nepali, Dotyali, or Dangaura Tharu. ⁴⁶ To ensure that its estimates are as accurate as possible, CMS considered only non-naturalized, foreign-born persons (i.e., persons without US citizenship). The final estimates represent aggregated estimates of individuals matching the CMS profiles, weighted to population level, using standard Census Bureau–established person weights that take into account the ACS’s sampling design and the aggregation of 1-year samples into the 5-year microdata sample. ⁴⁷ Using these weights, CMS is able to produce estimates of the number of individuals matching each profile above who resided in the United States in 2017.

The ACS does not permit researchers to determine definitively whether individuals are stateless or at risk of statelessness. Its questionnaires do not include explicit questions about nationality or statelessness. It also does not ask questions about non-US citizenship, and therefore, it is not possible to gauge whether ACS respondents possess nationalities other than US citizenship. As stated, individuals included in CMS’s estimates may possess the nationality of their country of origin or a third country. Thus, CMS’s estimates should be considered provisional estimates of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.

Also, as noted above, the incidence and risk of statelessness are likely to vary significantly across profiles. Some small groups included in CMS’s profiles, notably former Yugoslavians from North Macedonia, ethnic Somalis from Kenya, ethnic Eritreans from Ethiopia, ethnic Ethiopians from Eritrea, ethnic Tamils from Malaysia, Palestinians from Jordan, and Serbians from Croatia, may experience statelessness at lower rates than other profiled groups. Without additional data and individual screening, it is impossible to estimate the incidence of statelessness for each profile.

Limitations

The 5-Year ACS aggregates some countries of birth into larger geographic regions. ⁴⁸ As a result, the ACS precludes the identification of individuals born in some key countries and territories set forth in the CMS profiles, including Estonia, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, Côte d’Ivoire, Brunei, Madagascar, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and South Sudan. Likewise, ACS data do not capture speakers of several languages, including Rohingya, Tedaga (Tebu Libyan), Dinka, Nuer, and several minority languages of Kenya, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, and Thailand. The ACS aggregates these into larger language families, making it difficult to identify speakers who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness with precision.

ACS data also do not capture certain ethnicities from CMS’s profiles, including Sahrawi, Lebanese Bedouin, Dinka, Nuer, Burkinabé, Guinean, Tanzanian, Mozambican, and Zimbabwean individuals and members of some Thai minority groups. As in the case of languages not captured by the ACS, these ancestries are aggregated into larger categories. In addition, some ethnicities, such as Afghan Jogi and Bakassi, are missing entirely from the ACS. Furthermore, ACS data do not permit the identification of Iraqi Feyli Kurds born in Iran and Chinese Cambodians born in Vietnam, because it is impossible to disaggregate them from Iranian Kurds and Vietnamese of Chinese origin. The ACS estimates also cannot be used to distinguish ethnic Somali Kenyans whose ancestors arrived in Kenya in the 1930s from those whose ancestors were in Kenya prior to that decade, who may have a lower incidence of statelessness. Likewise, these estimates cannot be used to differentiate between Thai-born ethnic Hmong, Lahu, Yao, Lisu, and Shan individuals with immediate ancestry in Laos or Myanmar, and members of these groups with immediate ancestry in Thailand, who may have a lower rate of statelessness, or between ethnic Nepalese of immediate Bhutanese ancestry and ethnic Nepalese with immediate ancestry in Nepal.

In addition, these data do not allow the identification of individuals born in Pakistan and Sri Lanka who were stateless in India before arriving in the United States, because the ACS lacks data on country of last habitual residence for individuals who arrived in the United States more than one year prior to the survey. Nor do the data permit the accurate identification of Indian-born individuals of Pakistani origin from Jammu and Kashmir, since the ACS does not record region of birth within India. As a result, CMS excludes this profile from its final estimate. Finally, ACS data do not permit CMS to distinguish between Feyli Kurds and other Kurds born in Iraq. CMS’s estimates of Feyli Kurds may include some non-Feyli Iraqi Kurds who possess Iraqi citizenship.

Moreover, many non-US citizens born in the countries set forth in the CMS profiles did not list their ancestries, or they listed ancestries coded as “Other” in the ACS. About 403,000 of a total 5.5 million (about 7.4 percent) born in these countries did not list any ancestry, and 20,100 listed “other” ancestries. Some of these individuals may match the criteria in CMS’s profiles. Consequently, this analysis may fail to capture small numbers of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. ⁴⁹

Finally, the ACS does not permit the identification of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness who were not registered in their home countries at birth but do not belong to a minority ethnic or linguistic group. In particular, CMS cannot identify Bidoon who are not ethnic minorities in their countries of residence or Chinese-born individuals without hukou registration.

Provisional Estimates of Persons Who Are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness in the United States

CMS’s analysis of ACS data reveals 198,000 individuals who match its profiles of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. To account for potential inaccuracies due to survey error, CMS also calculated upper and lower bounds for this estimate. CMS estimates that the number of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness, as defined by the above profiles and accounting for the data limitations described above, falls between 192,000 and 204,000 persons. ⁵⁰

CMS’s analysis of ACS data based on its statelessness profiles reveals 198,000 individuals who match the above profiles of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness.

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Table 1.

ACS Estimates of Profiles of Those Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness. ⁵¹

Profile Description (Rounded to the Nearest 100)	Estimate 52 (Rounded to the Nearest 100)	Note
Emigrants from the Former Soviet Union before Its Collapse Who Arrived in the US before 1992
Latvia	700
USSR	1,300
Byelorussia	400
Moldova	400
Ukraine	5,800
Armenia	2,500
Azerbaijan	300
Georgia	400
Kazakhstan	400
Uzbekistan	400
Lithuania	700
Tajikistan		Data on Tajikistan not available in ACS; data only presented in a regional aggregate.
Turkmenistan		Data on Turkmenistan not available in ACS; data only presented in a regional aggregate.
Estonia		Data on Estonia not available in ACS; data only presented in a regional aggregate.
Ethnic Russians, Belarussians, and Poles from Latvia	2,300
Members of Ethnic Minority Groups from Lithuania	<100
South Caucasus
Armenians from Azerbaijan	1,100
Azerbaijanis from Georgia	0
Meskhetian Turks
Georgia	0
Russia	1,200
Uzbekistan	800
USSR	0
Roma, Ashkali, and Balkan Egyptians
Roma, Yugoslavia	0
Roma, Croatia	0
Roma, Serbia	0
Roma, Montenegro	0
Roma, Bosnia	0
Roma, North Macedonia	0
Roma, Slovenia	0
Balkan Egyptians, Albania	0
Balkan Egyptians, Serbia	0
Balkan Egyptians, Montenegro	0
Balkan Egyptians, North Macedonia	<100
Balkan Egyptians, Yugoslavia	0
Individuals with Yugoslavian Passports Who Entered the US before 1992	4,300
Born in North Macedonia, Other Ex-Yugoslav Descent	2,000	This profile may have a relatively low incidence of statelessness and may include numerous individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness.
Born in Croatia, Serbian Descent	1,500
Roma Born in Italy and Germany
Germany	<100
Italy	<100
Syrian Refugee Children Born Abroad
Germany	0
Jordan	200
Lebanon	0
Sweden	0
Turkey	<100
United Kingdom	0
Feyli Kurds from Iraq	5,400	Feyli Kurds born in Iran cannot be identified. They cannot be distinguished from Iranian Kurds. This sum may include some non-Feyli Kurds from Iraq.
Syrian Kurds	300
Lebanese Kurds and Bedouin	0	Lebanese Bedouin cannot be identified. No Lebanese Kurdish respondents were registered in the ACS.
Individuals Rendered Stateless by Lebanese Nationality Laws		ACS data are not specific enough for estimates based on this profile.
Tebu Libyans		Tebu Libyans cannot be identified; Tedaga language is aggregated with other North African languages.
Palestinians
Jordan	1,600
Lebanon	500
Syria	100
Israel and Palestine	700
Kuwait	600	This figure reflects the number of Kuwait-born persons who indicated Saudi ancestry in the ACS.
Saudi Arabia	300
United Arab Emirates	400
Egypt	<100
Yemen	<100
“Other Asia,” including Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar	6,200
Bidoon
Kuwait	300	Only Bidoon of Iraqi and Saudi descent are identifiable; other Bidoon are ethnic Kuwaitis and speak Arabic. Some individuals of Iraqi and Saudi descent from Kuwait may also not be Bidoon.
Saudi Arabia		Bidoon are ethnic Saudis and speak Arabic, and thus cannot be identified.
United Arab Emirates		Bidoon are ethnic Emiratis and speak Arabic, and thus cannot be identified.
Nepalese Born after 1990, including Lhotshampas Born in Nepal	42,100	The ACS cannot be used to distinguish among Lhotshampas, Nepalese with immediate ancestry in Bhutan, and Nepalese with direct ancestry in Nepal. These groups may have different incidences of statelessness.
Ethnic Nepalis (Lhotshampas) Born in Bhutan	41,700
Rohingya		Rohingya language and ethnicity not identified in ACS.
Myanmar
Malaysia
Thailand
Australia
Bangladesh
Pakistan
India
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Other Minorities from Myanmar
Ethnic Indians	1,700
Ethnic Chinese	11,400
Ethnic Nepali	<100
Hmong from Laos	12,400
Hmong from Thailand	10,000
Members of Thai Hill Tribes	0
Thai-Born Children of Burmese Refugees	9,900
Chinese without Hukou Registration		Cannot be measured using ancestry or language data.
Tibetans
Born in Tibet/China	3,600
Born in India	1,900
Born in Nepal	900
Afghan Jogi		Jogi ethnicity cannot be identified in ACS.
Stateless Groups from India
Chakmas and Hajongs		ACS data are not specific enough for estimates based on this profile.
Indian-born persons with Sri Lankan Tamil Origin	0
Indian-Born Persons of Bhutanese Origin, including Lhotshampas	<100
Bengalis from Pakistan	0
Ethnic Minorities from Malaysia
Ethnic Tamil Indians	600	This profile may have a relatively low incidence of statelessness and may include numerous individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness.
Ethnic Indonesians	<100
Ethnic Filipinos	<100
Ethnic Vietnamese and Khmer Krom from Cambodia	400
Chinese Cambodians from Vietnam		Cannot be disaggregated from Chinese Vietnamese.
Stateless Persons from Brunei		Data on Brunei not available in ACS; data only presented in a regional aggregate.
Ivoirians with Ancestry in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso		Malian, Guinean, and Burkinabé ancestries are aggregated into “West African” in ACS.
Stateless Groups from Kenya
Somalian ancestry, including Galjeel	6,800	This profile may have a relatively low incidence of statelessness and may include numerous individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness.
Shona speakers	300
Tanzanian/Zanzibari ancestry (Pemba)		Cannot be identified; Tanzanian and Zanzibari ancestry only available in “Other Subsaharan African” aggregate.
Sudanese ancestry (Nubians)		Cannot be identified; Nubian language only available in aggregate.
Karana of Madagascar		Data on Madagascar not available in ACS. Only presented in aggregate.
South Asian Ancestry — Comorian Ancestry
Bakassi of Nigeria and Cameroon		Bakassi ethnic group not identified in ACS.
Zimbabweans with Origins in Neighboring Countries
Malawian ancestry		Cannot be identified; Malawian ancestry available only in aggregate.
Mozambican ancestry		Cannot be identified; Mozambican ancestry available only in aggregate.
Zambian ancestry		Cannot be identified; Zambian ancestry available only in aggregate.
Returned Mozambican Refugees in Mozambique		Cannot be identified using ancestry or language data.
Black Mauritanians		Data on Mauritania not available in ACS; data present only in a regional aggregate.
Sahrawi (Born in the Western Sahara or Algeria)		Cannot be identified; data on Western Sahara are only available in “Other North Africa” and “Other Arab” aggregates.
Ethiopians with Eritrean Ancestry	1,600	This profile may have a relatively low incidence of statelessness and may include numerous individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness.
Eritreans with Ethiopian Ancestry	6,000	This profile may have a relatively low incidence of statelessness and may include numerous individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness.
Sudanese-Born Individuals of Dinka and Nuer (South Sudanese) Descent, Arrived in 2011 or Later		Dinka and Nuer ancestries available only in aggregate.
Born in South Sudan, Main South Sudanese Ethnic Groups, Arrived in 2011 or Later		Data on South Sudan not available in ACS. Only presented in “East Africa” aggregate.
Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge from the Democratic Republic of Congo	0	Hutu, Tutsi, Banyarwanda, and Banyamulenge ethnic groups are not identified in the ACS. The Kinyarwanda language is identified in the ACS, but no respondents identified as Kinyarwanda speakers. Most DRC-born respondents identified as French or Swahili speakers.
Dominicans (Dominican Republic) of Haitian Ancestry	600
Bahamians of Haitian Ancestry	2,800
TOTAL	198,000 53

Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

The largest groups in these provisional estimates are:

Nepali-born individuals born in or before 1990, including the Nepali-born children of refugees from Bhutan (42,100);

Many members of these populations — particularly those from Bhutan, the DRC, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar — are legally present as refugees in the United States (Figure 1), but they are not assured of securing US citizenship.

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Figure 1.

Provisional Estimates of Potentially Stateless Populations and Populations Potentially at Risk of Statelessness in the United States. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

Demographic and Labor Force Characteristics of Populations That Are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness

Individuals who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness are present in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. ⁵¹ According to CMS’s analysis and provisional estimates, the 10 states with the largest populations are California (20,600), New York (18,500), Texas (15,200), Ohio (13,200), Minnesota (11,200), Illinois (8,600), Pennsylvania (8,200), Wisconsin (7,300), Georgia (6,600), and Virginia (6,500) (Figure 2).

Individuals who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness are present in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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Figure 2.

Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness, by State. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

CMS’s provisional estimates indicate that the US population of individuals who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness is 52.6 percent male and 47.4 percent female. About 55 percent of those older than age 15 are married.

While many are relatively new arrivals —45.1 percent have resided in the United States less than 5 years — 18.2 percent have lived in the United States for 20 or more years (see Figure 3). Many of the newer arrivals were born in Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, and Myanmar. Many likely arrived as refugees and possess permanent residency. Those who have lived in the United States for 20 years or more are mostly Hmong from Laos and Thailand and persons from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

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Figure 3.

Time Spent in United States. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

At the time they were surveyed, 23.4 percent of this population was 18 years old or younger, 69.1 percent was between 18 and 64 years old, and 7.5 percent was 65 years of age or older (Figure 4).

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Figure 4.

Age at Time of Survey. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

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Figure 5.

English Proficiency. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

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Figure 6.

Educational Attainment. Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

CMS’s analysis suggests that most people who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness are proficient in English. About 35.1 percent rated themselves as fluent, and about 29.4 percent rated themselves as proficient. Many fluent and proficient English speakers in this population come from Nepal. Only 12.4 percent reported that they speak no English, including many from Bhutan and Myanmar.

Persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness possesses a relatively low level of educational attainment. About 40.9 percent of those 18 years old or older possesses less than a high school education, and 25.7 percent possesses a high school degree or its equivalent. For comparison, 12.7 percent of the remainder of the population 18 years old or older — all individuals who are neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness — possesses less than a high school education, and 27.8 percent possesses a high school degree or its equivalent. ⁵⁵ Only 14.7 percent possesses a bachelor’s degree or higher, as compared to 28.3 percent of the remainder of the US population aged 18 or older. ⁵⁶

Yet many members of this population are enrolled in school. About 33.2 percent aged 3 and older are pursuing education, as compared to 26.4 percent of the population that is not potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. ⁵⁷

Given the immense barriers to socioeconomic attainment of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness, it comes as little surprise that they participate in the labor force at relatively low rates and are more likely to be unemployed than the overall population. Of those aged 16 or older, about 58.7 percent of the population that is potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness participates in the labor force, compared to 63.3 percent of those neither potentially stateless nor potentially at risk of statelessness. ⁵⁸ Of those in the labor force, 90.6 percent are employed and 9.4 percent unemployed, compared to 6.5 percent among the remainder of the population older than 16 years of age. ⁵⁹ Of those employed, 6.3 percent are self-employed, as compared to 10.4 percent of the remainder of the employed population older than 16 years old. ⁶⁰

Given the immense barriers to socioeconomic attainment of persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness, it comes as little surprise that they participate in the labor force at relatively low rates and are more likely to be unemployed than the overall population.

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Table 2.

Top Occupations of Those Who Are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness.

Rank	Occupation	Number
1	Cashiers	5,066
2	Maids and housekeeping cleaners	4,853
3	Janitors and building cleaners	3,669
4	Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand	3,640
5	Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	3,639
6	Packers and packagers, hand	3,595
7	Cooks	3,355
8	Personal care aides	3,063
9	Miscellaneous production workers, including semiconductor processors	2,666
10	Butchers and other meat-, poultry-, and fish-processing workers	2,560

Source: CMS calculations based on 2013–2017 5-year PUMS data.

Persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness earn less than the US average. During the 2013 to 2017 period, their average annual personal income was $17,629, significantly lower than the average annual personal income for the remainder of the population, $38,415, during the same period. ⁶¹ Such persons may face particular difficulties in adjusting to LPR status in the United States, given the recent release of a rule that significantly expands the standard for inadmissibility, including low income, based on the likelihood of becoming a “public charge.” About 80 percent of those who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk reported having health insurance coverage.

Finally, 40,800 people, or 20.6 percent, of all US residents identified by CMS as potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness live in mortgaged homes. A further 7.9 percent lived in homes owned free and clear. While potentially stateless persons and those at risk of statelessness have established strong roots in the United States, their rates of homeownership remain lower than national averages.

Potentially Omitted Groups

CMS’s provisional estimates do not represent a definitive count of US stateless persons or persons at risk of statelessness. An unknown number of persons in each profile possess the nationality of their country of origin or a third country. For this reason, these estimates may overestimate the numbers of stateless persons in the United States.

These estimates also, however, omit groups of persons who are potentially stateless or at risk or statelessness who do not appear in the ACS data and may not fit the profiles set forth above, which could contribute to undercount. In addition to stateless populations that cannot be found in the ACS, CMS’s estimates may omit:

Persons who were not registered in their country of birth and who lack citizenship in their country of origin, in a third country, and in the United States.

These estimates may also be biased if ACS respondents misrepresent their country of birth, ethnicity, language, or US citizenship. Some stateless persons may not answer questions on ethnicity or language truthfully out of fear of persecution, removal, or hope to become a US citizen. These same factors, however, may contribute to scrupulous accuracy in responding to these questions for fear of running afoul of the government.

Finally, the ACS may miss small stateless groups or those that speak languages for which translation is not available. Despite the ACS’s large sample size, many US stateless groups likely number less than a few hundred individuals. The ACS may miss some of these small groups. Moreover, the ACS questionnaire is available in only English and Spanish, and interpretation and assistance are limited to roughly 30 other languages. It is possible that some stateless persons speak languages for which no assistance is available. Individuals with insufficient language skills may have difficulty completing the survey.

Without more reliable and detailed data, the scale and direction of biases in CMS’s estimates cannot be determined.

Refugee- and Immigration-Related Administrative Data on the Stateless

The data from US refugee and immigration programs feed into an extensive, interlocking set of federal databases and information systems (Meissner et al. 2013, 66–72). DHS has initiated an ambitious data integration project that seeks, in part, to ensure that immigration records can be linked across the various DHS data systems and made accessible to DHS stakeholders. Stateless persons may come to the attention of federal officials who administer US refugee and immigration programs through applying for an immigration benefit, admission to the United States, refugee resettlement, requesting asylum, immigration enforcement, placement in removal proceedings, detention, and other ways. At each of these points of contact, noncitizens must provide their “nationality,” which may be listed as “stateless,” “unknown,” or possibly “no nationality.”

Ultimately, CMS researchers opted to build their provisional estimates around ACS data given its reach and detail, and because of the limitations of federal immigration and refugee data, starting with the fact that not all stateless persons come to the attention of immigration officials. After significant engagement with DHS on this study and their data needs, CMS formally requested from DHS detailed information on admissions of refugees, nonimmigrants, and immigrants (LPRs), as well as anyone listed as stateless or of unknown nationality in the same datasets. CMS also requested detailed information on noncitizens — particularly those listed as stateless or of unknown nationality — who received removal orders, and either spent more than 90 days in detention following their order or were released from custody.

As per the latter request, DHS is statutorily required to remove a noncitizen within 90 days following an administratively final order of removal. ⁶² In Zadvydas v. Davis, ⁶³ the US Supreme Court found 6 months to be a presumptively reasonable time period to effect removal. After 6 months, however, the government bears the burden to demonstrate that the detainee is likely to be removed in the “reasonably foreseeable future.” If it cannot meet this burden, it must release him or her. In Clark v Martinez, ⁶⁴ the Supreme Court extended this decision to inadmissible noncitizens (i.e., those encountered by immigration officials before they “enter” the nation as a matter of law). Following Zadvydas and Clark, the number of noncitizens, including stateless persons, detained for very long periods following receipt of a removal order declined significantly (Kerwin, Alulema, and Tu 2015, 342).

That said, data on noncitizens who cannot be removed still remain a likely source of stateless persons. A study by the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) of all immigrant detainees on December 13, 2017, for example, found that 3,053 had not been removed within 90 days of their removal order (DHS-OIG 2019). This figure exceeded the numbers reported in earlier studies that examined all US immigrant detainees on particular nights in 2009 and 2012 (Kerwin and Lin 2009, 18; Kerwin, Alulema, and Tu 2015, 3, 43). Moreover, the OIG report attributed delays in removal to the failure to secure travel documents in 948 of the 3,053 cases, including in cases of statelessness in which citizenship could not be established (DHS-OIG 2019, 7).

To date, DHS-OIS has not responded to CMS’s broad data request. CMS has, however, secured refugee and immigration data from other sources.

Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS)

To complement its ACS estimates, CMS secured data from DOS’s WRAPS database, which tracks refugees admitted for resettlement (RPC 2019), and contains records on country of birth, admission date, religion, ethnicity, age, education, and native language.

As above, CMS estimates individuals whose countries of birth, ethnic backgrounds, and years of arrival to the United States, or language proficiencies, match its profiles of US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. ⁶⁵ These estimates are in Table 3. To facilitate comparison with ACS data, CMS analyzed WRAPS data from calendar year 2002, the first year of its availability, through 2017.

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Table 3.

WRAPS Estimates of Profiles of Those Who Are Potentially Stateless or Potentially at Risk of Statelessness.

Profile Description	Count
Ethnic Russians, Belarussians, and Ukrainians from Estonia	34
Ethnic Russians, Belarussians, and Poles from Latvia	38
South Caucasus
Armenians from Azerbaijan	143
Meskhetian Turks
Russia	2,442
Uzbekistan	37
Roma, Ashkali, and Balkan Egyptians
Roma, Yugoslavia
Roma, Croatia	4
Roma, Serbia	157
Roma, Bosnia	1
Roma, North Macedonia	3
Born in Croatia, Serbian Descent	110
Feyli Kurds from Iraq (Note: Feyli Kurds born in Iran cannot be identified. They cannot be distinguished from Iranian Kurds. This sum may include some non-Feyli Kurds from Iraq.)	5,887
Syrian Kurds	1,719
Palestinians
Israel and Palestine	1,442
Bidoon
Kuwait	2
Nepalese Born after 1990, including Lhotshampas Born in Nepal	9
Ethnic Nepalis (Lhotshampas) Born in Bhutan	73,416
Rohingya	7,484
Other Minorities from Myanmar
Ethnic Indians 67	86
Ethnic Chinese	48
Ethnic Nepali	35
Hmong from Laos	4,075
Hmong from Thailand	1
Members of Thai Hill Tribes
Thai-Born Children of Burmese Refugees	4
Tibetans
Born in Tibet/China	5
Ethnic Vietnamese and Khmer Krom from Cambodia	10
Somalis from Kenya	11
Black Mauritanians	165
Ethiopians with Eritrean Ancestry	6
Eritreans with Ethiopian Ancestry	8
Sudanese-Born Individuals of Dinka and Nuer (South Sudanese) Descent, Arrived in 2011 or Later	295
Born in South Sudan, Major South Sudanese Ethnic Groups, Arrived in 2011 or Later	83
Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge from the Democratic Republic of Congo	19,612
TOTAL	117,370

Source: RPC (Refugee Processing Center). 2019. “Interactive Reporting.” http://ireports.wrapsnet.org.

Since WRAPS data do not indicate whether admitted refugees eventually naturalized, CMS used ACS data from 2017 to calculate estimated naturalization rates by country of birth (US Census Bureau 2018b). To ensure that these counts do not include persons who have naturalized, CMS multiplied WRAPS counts of refugees fitting each missing profile by the 2017 average naturalization rate of all US residents born in those refugees’ birth countries. ⁶⁶

WRAPS data do not permit the calculation of estimates for all groups for which CMS compiled ACS-based estimates. It contains only records of individuals admitted as refugees. Nor does it pick up many who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness for reasons other than ethnic or religious persecution, like persons from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia who are stateless due to state succession. Furthermore, groups who are potentially stateless due to gender-discriminatory nationality laws, such as Nepalis born to non-Nepali fathers, or due to registration requirements, such as Bahamian Haitians, cannot be identified.

Moreover, WRAPS data are available from only 2002 through the present. Thus, tabulations based on WRAPS data may undercount the population of those who are potentially stateless or at risk of statelessness if some or all refugees from a given profile arrived before 2002.

Finally, many WRAPS ethnic categories are too broad to permit the calculation of estimates. In particular, WRAPS does not generally distinguish among “Arab” ethnic groups. Palestinians and Syrians are grouped together with all other Arab nationalities, making it impossible for CMS to tabulate estimates of stateless Palestinians and children born to Syrian refugees. Moreover, data from some countries and territories — including India, Malaysia, Côte d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Brunei, the Western Sahara, and the Dominican Republic — are either missing entirely or insufficiently detailed to produce estimates.

Lessons from UNHCR Mapping Statelessness Studies for Other Countries

With the support of UNHCR, a number of countries have attempted to map statelessness within their borders. UNHCR-sponsored mapping projects have been carried out in Austria (UNHCR 2017a), Belgium (UNHCR 2012), Estonia (UNHCR 2016c), Finland (UNHCR 2014a), Iceland (UNHCR 2014b), Lithuania (UNHCR 2016a), Malta (UNHCR 2014c), the Netherlands (UNHCR 2011a), Norway (UNHCR 2015b), Sweden (UNHCR 2016b), and the United Kingdom (UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). With the possible exception of the United Kingdom, these nations lack the diversity of the US foreign-born population. All of them also have far smaller foreign-born populations than the United States. These studies relied on both the analysis of administrative data collected from national immigration agencies and interviews with stateless individuals.

Administrative data sources include central population registries, population censuses, vital records, migration-related databases, information on refugees and asylum seekers, and data related to enforcement of immigration laws. Table 7 details the sources used, by country. As is apparent from the table, the vast majority of projects draw at least in part on central population registries (UNHCR, 2011a, 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017a), a source not available or likely to be available in the United States. Moreover, most of these studies did not make estimates of national stateless populations, or (if they did) their estimates did not include unauthorized stateless populations.

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Table 7.

Data Sources Examined to Obtain Estimates of Stateless Populations.

Country	Central Population Registry**	Population Census	Vital Records	Central Migration-Related Database	Refugee and Asylum Seeker	Immigration Enforcement (including Detention)	Foreigners with or Applying for Legal Residence	Naturalizations
Australia*					X	X	X
Austria	X		X		X		X	X
Belgium	X				X
Estonia	X	X				X
Finland	X						X
Iceland	X				X		X
Japan*				X
Lithuania	X	X		X	X
Malta		X			X			X
Norway	X			X
Sweden	X			X	X
The Netherlands	X				X		X
The United Kingdom		X		X	X	X

* Not a UNHCR “Mapping Statelessness” report.

** May include information from other columns.

Sources: Abe (2010), UNHCR (2011a, 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015b, 2016b, 2016c, 2017a), UNHCR and Asylum Aid (2011), and Foster, McAdam, and Wadley (2017).

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Table 8.

Interviewees’ Countries of Birth.

Country of Birth	Number of Interviewees
Bhutan	8
Myanmar	24
Democratic Republic of Congo	2
Eritrea	1
Ethiopia	1
France	1
Kuwait	1
Nepal	1
Netherlands	1
Turkey	1
USSR / Russia
Estonia	2
Georgia	1
Russia	2
Uzbekistan	2
Total	48

Reports from these projects suggest three key difficulties with administrative data. First, administrative data often record the nationality of individuals as “unknown.” In some cases, individuals with “unknown” nationalities may be stateless, but it is not known how often this is the case. As a consequence, estimates of stateless persons based on registry data may not be accurate. Moreover, in many countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands, registration is carried out at the municipal level, and the determination of statelessness often varies among municipalities (UNHCR 2011a, 2012). Second, official records such as registries do not generally include migrants without lawful status. Often, registries are restricted to legal residents. Third, stateless persons may seek to avoid official detection because of their precarious situation, which may lead to undercount.

Six countries also interviewed stateless individuals to gain qualitative understanding of their experiences (Austria: UNHCR 2017a; Belgium: UNHCR 2012; Estonia: UNHCR 2016c; Lithuania: UNHCR 2016a; Malta: UNHCR 2014c; Netherlands: UNHCR 2011a; United Kingdom:

UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). Researchers identified and recruited participants with the help of stakeholders, including NGOs and UNHCR. The UK project team compiled a database of more than 400 gatekeepers who could potentially refer participants to the study (UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). Three research teams also incorporated information from interview participants’ immigration files to verify details of their immigration stories and gain insight into stateless persons’ contacts with immigration authorities (Austria: UNHCR 2017a; Belgium: UNHCR 2012; United Kingdom: UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). In three countries where stateless individuals were not interviewed, researchers sent a survey to stakeholders who they thought were likely to encounter stateless persons in order to understand their situation (Iceland: UNHCR 2014b; Norway: UNHCR 2015b; Sweden: UNHCR 2016b).

Section IV: Challenges Confronting US Stateless Persons

This section will highlight key problems faced by stateless persons in the United States and their families. Many of these challenges do not apply exclusively to stateless persons. Undocumented persons, for example, experience the same obstacles to work and the same threats of arrest, detention, and deportation that all unauthorized persons do. The deleterious impact of these threats on affected individuals, families, and communities has been well documented (Boehm 2017; Coon 2017; Kerwin 2018).

Unlike nationals, stateless persons cannot receive support or protection from an embassy or consulate. Nor can they return to their country of previous habitual residence. Stateless persons also have difficulties obtaining identification documents. Lack of an ID card can make even the most basic interactions difficult to negotiate.

CMS’s interviews with 48 stateless persons offered a firsthand view of the challenges facing stateless persons. Given the small sample size, the findings from these interviews should not be taken as representative of the entire stateless population. They provide powerful insights, however, into the lived experiences of 48 stateless persons in the United States. CMS interviewed individuals born in 14 countries, including from many groups described in the profiles, such as Rohingya from Myanmar, stateless ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan, citizens of the former Soviet Union, and stateless Romani from France and the Netherlands. ⁶⁹ The interviewees included 14 women and 34 men. These individuals had become stateless for a variety of reasons, including:

Discriminatory nationality policies in countries such as the DRC, Myanmar, and Bhutan.

Some had lost their nationality, while others, including many Romani and Rohingya, had been born stateless. They included a mix of undocumented persons, LPRs, asylees, and refugees, most of whom had become LPRs.

Most of the undocumented stateless persons arrived legally in the United States. Some came as children, particularly people from the former Soviet Union and the Romani from Europe. Many sought but did not receive asylum. Some lacked identification documents from their home countries. Some received orders of removal but could not be deported. Instead, they experienced long periods of detention. Several had been released under orders of supervision, and others were in the process of reapplying for asylum.

Ties to the United States

The interviews revealed an embedded population that had established deep roots but faced extraordinary disadvantages in US society. Most considered the United States home. They reported having US citizen children and (even) grandchildren. Several owned their own businesses and homes. Many had attended school in the United States and were active members of their communities.

One interviewee stated,

I found this place and let [my friends] know. They overnighted the money. I started the business with $16,000. Two years later, I bought the building and then I bought a liquor license. It was a little café and now it has become twice, maybe even three times, bigger restaurant than it ever was, with the nicest garden and nice outside seating. We were expanding it, and ICE picked me up right in the middle of the construction and put me in jail for ten months. Thanks to the community, they took it over and they continued, and they kept it alive.

Even among those new to the United States, many expressed a deep gratitude to the US government for allowing them to stay. As a Rohingya man who arrived in the United States in 2015 put it, “The US government respects us as Rohingya.…Even though we don’t have US citizenship, we’re not afraid to live here.” Interviewees expressed enthusiasm about eventually naturalizing and contributing to US society.

Challenges Facing Stateless Persons without Lawful Status

The interviews revealed that stateless persons — particularly those without status — face a variety of challenges in the United States, including limited employment prospects, barriers to international and even domestic travel, difficulties obtaining driver’s licenses and opening bank accounts, psychological stress, and a sense of stigma.

Section V: Recommendations

Based on its research, CMS has identified a series of recommendations aimed at gaining a fuller understanding of the scope of this problem, addressing the challenges facing stateless persons, and dramatically reducing statelessness in the United States. These recommendations are made to a range of government, international, and nongovernmental actors.

United Nations Agencies

The US Congress, the Administration, and State and Local Governments

US Civil Society Institutions and CBOs Should…

Recommendations for the Improved Identification of Stateless Populations in the United States

A meaningful effort to produce reliable estimates of US stateless persons must include an incentive — like the possibility of verifying nationality and employment authorization — to bring forward these isolated and often invisible residents. For the purposes of this initiative, improved data collection is a pre-condition to better estimates of the US stateless population and, thus, to better-informed strategies to reduce statelessness. To this end:

The administration should establish statelessness determination procedures (SDPs), and a voluntary procedure to register and offer temporary status and employment authorization to stateless persons.

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