Relief is Finally Coming for “Citizens of Nowhere” Living in the United States
The Biden Administration makes room for stateless people
By Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough
We hold no passports. No country recognizes us as citizens. And for too long, stateless people have been invisible to the U.S. immigration system.
That changed this week.
On August 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) finally recognized stateless people. The announcement by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas marks a significant milestone that could end the legal limbo for as many as 200,000 people in the United States whom no country will claim as a citizen.
Until now, the lack of legal recognition and protection has stateless people in the United States trapped in uncertainty. I know because I am one of them. I was born in Soviet Ukraine in 1988. Soviet-era rules prevented me from obtaining a passport as a young child, and I did not meet the criteria for citizenship under newly independent Ukraine. In…
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