Current Challenges and Concerns
The United States has not signed or ratified the Statelessness Conventions and lacks a national legal framework to address the issue of statelessness. Nevertheless, the United States has relatively comprehensive and inclusive nationality laws. U.S law provides for a Constitutional right to jus soli automatically at birth within the territory of the U.S and by statute for limited jus sanguinis, upon application, to children born abroad. Nevertheless, gaps exist that could lead to statelessness in certain circumstances.
The United States could greatly benefit from a legal regime to address statelessness. It has a large foreign-born population of immigrants. It receives immigrants from every country in the world and, due to the large size and diversity of the population, it is likely that a percentage, as yet unknown, of this population are stateless. Reaching this population is challenging due to the diversity of undocumented, immigrant communities living in the U.S. The U.S also contains many marginalized communities who may be at risk of statelessness due to failure to register children at birth. Due to this diversity, one of the primary challenges for the United States is to identify and reach out to stateless populations.
Useful Links
UnitedStateless.org – is a national organization led by stateless people whose mission is to build and inspire community among those affected by statelessness, and to advocate for their human rights.
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