Talk:Stateless person

message: Maybe we should include a list of famous stateless individuals? Such persons are such to attract much curiosity. Though I can't think of anyone except that guy who stayed in an airport for a long time... made into a movie, but I forgot the name. -Hmib 01:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I just created :Category:Stateless people and :Category:Formerly stateless people to put articles in.  (And technically Merhan Karimi Nasseri isn't stateless (he's still an Iranian national, as far as I know) but he's a refugee because he can't go back there.  I added him to :Category:Refugees instead.)  --Closeapple 09:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Famous stateless individuals

message: From this article it seems statelessness is a bad situation, and countries sometimes try to avoid this situation for foreigners or closer people. But also states, as far as I have seen, don't allow nationals to repudiate their nationality if they are not getting a new one.
¿Anyone know of a state that permits resignation of nationality even if becoming stateless? It is a very interesting case to show the limits of freedom, and the needs of states and laws to have people adscribed to them or some other law they can handle you with. I will put a little phrase reflecting this imposibility soon.
:A 1960s book called Guide to the Draft, aimed at explaining the workings of the United States Selective Service to American men of draft age, advised that a man who fled the country to avoid the draft would probably not be permitted to return. However, if he were to go abroad and renounce his citizenship prior to committing any violation of the Selective Service Act, he might someday be able to return at least as a visitor, though this would not be guaranteed. The book did not really recommend this course of action, noting that no country would be obliged to admit such a person, and he might experience difficulty finding a place he would be allowed to reside. --Trovatore 19:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the U.S. allows its citizens to renounce citizenship even if they have no other.   However this is not a general pattern, for example the United Kingdom has a specific prohibition on a British citizen making himself stateless by renouncing citizenship.   JAJ 18:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would be nice to get a fact check on both of these (US and UK). My references on voluntary renunciation for US citizens would be Guide to the Draft, in which it was a minor point perhaps not thoroughly researched, and the section on "Loss of Citizenship" in the US passport, which gives among the ways that citizenship may be lost formally renouncing U.S. citizenship before a U.S. consular officer overseas. The passport does not, however, explicitly say that such renunciations will always be permitted, or effective if permitted. --Trovatore 19:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Three people in recent years renounced their USA citizenship to become stateless:  Mike Gogulski in 2008, Glen Roberts in 2013, and Jason Minard in 2014.  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.56.30.140 (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voluntarily stateless 

message: Please note that the Canadian law alluded to in the text about having to establish Canadian residency by age 28 — section 8 of the current Citizenship Act — deals specifically with people who were born outside Canada to a Canadian parent who was, in turn, also born outside Canada to a Canadian parent — in other words, second-generation citizens by descent (though please note that the term "citizen by descent" is not actually used in Canadian citizenship law).  The law in question has nothing in particular to do with dual citizenship (except insofar as the affected individuals are probably likely to have dual citizenship).  Richwales 07:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canadian citizenship law and statelessness 

message: Should all this talk about Brunei really be in this article?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.35.80.224 (talk) 16:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be shortened considerably, yet still it deserves a mention. It appears to have NPOV, weasel word and potential OR problems. The last paragraph in particular has unsubstantiated speculation, is riddled with 'many' weasel words and I don't know what PR stands for. I hope someone knowledgeable can clean it up. Nazlfrag (talk) 16:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brunei 

message: Didn't he lose his Saudi citizenship? If so, wouldn't that make him a stateless person? Josh (talk) 08:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Osama bin Laden

message: Mikhail Sebastian, a 39 year old male is a stateless person who has been living in the United States of America for 16 years as a responsible tax payer with no criminal background. He came to the United States in 1995 as a citizen of ex-Soviet Union, a country that ceased to exist and along with it, his citizenship. At that time he was 22 and tried to file for political asylum in Houston, TX. Since he was not able to afford lawyers, he defended his own case in front of an immigration judge, not knowing any of the vast laws and nuances of US immigration procedure. His case was denied, Mikhail was told he would be deported. This was an issue for Mikhail, and the United States, because Mikhail is one of the estimated 4,000 people living in the U.S. whom is considered “stateless”, or having no legal rights to any country or place to live. Difficulty often originates in that states are often reluctant to acknowledge the presence of stateless people on their territories. More often, they are counted as undifferentiated "aliens", if their presence is recognized at all. Mikhail has no rights afforded to him as a citizen. But, where do you send a man who has no home?
Mikhail was born in Baku, Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic to Armenian Christian-Orthodox parents, and Azerbaijan does not recognize him as their citizen. During the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia his family had to flee for safety after his aunt was killed by local people in Baku, by being stoned to death. War was escalating in the area was escalating rapidly. He lived briefly in Moscow but Russian authorities did not provide him with residency or permission to live permanently. Finally, his parents moved to Turkmen S.S.R. in order to save their family from persecution. Since the collapse of U.S.S.R., Turkmenistan, predominantly with a Muslim population, had become a dictatorship regime. Russian language was eliminated, the non-Turkmen population was persecuted, and those who went against the dictatorship regime were jailed. As a student Turkmens bullied him because of his nationality, religious beliefs, refusal to learn the local language, his opposition against the dictatorship regime, and his sexual orientation as gay. Any act of homosexuality was punishable by law with up to five years in jail. The family did not adjust well or fit in.
He was able to finally obtain a U.S. visa and flee persecution of his beliefs and sexual orientation, coming to the U.S. for freedom and asylum. As previously stated, Mikhail could not afford a costly trial lawyer at the time of his case and was ordered deported. However, He could not leave the U.S. to travel anywhere else as similarly no other country offered permission or asylum.
In 2010 he contacted United Nations trying to get some sort of passport for stateless people and he was referred to World Service Authority, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. who were are an authority regarding the issuance of World Passports to stateless people and refugees.
On December 29, 2011, Mikhail decided to travel to the U.S. territory of American-Samoa, which is overseen by the Department of Interior. Mikhail was informed by the Los Angeles Immigration Department that he could travel to that territory only if he could obtain travel permission from the Attorney General of American Samoa, since it was territory, not a state. Mikhail obtained that permission.
Hawaiian Airlines checked his documents in LA and in Honolulu and he was told that everything was in order for his departure and return to the United States proper. On his way back, on January 02, 2012, Mikhail was denied boarding by a station manager of Hawaiian Airlines, Judith McCoy, who told him that the Honolulu airport Immigration Office did not authorize his return as he did not have permission to return to the United States. Mikhail procured his official documentation from I.C.E. stating his status in US as stateless. The airport immigration office informed Mikhail that because he left the U.S. voluntarily, he voluntarily deported himself from the U.S.
Mikhail came to the United States to avoid persecution, war and discrimination. For him, the U.S. is the land of opportunity, and values that some take for granted are quite tangible to Mikhail, having come from a hard background into but the land freedom, protection, safety, values and ideals. Mikhail is a hard working person of positivity and good moral standing. Mikhail has been torn away from the life he has carved for himself over sixteen years as a law abiding, tax paying citizen in the U.S., and has no other place to go.
United States is the only home and country he knows. He has contributed a lot to the community in Houston, TX where he lived before moving to Los Angeles, CA, his current home. Mikhail studied English and Literature at the Turkmen University, stopping after 2 years of study to flee the dictatorship regime. In the United States he continued his education, studying Spanish at Houston Community College, earning a has travel management diploma from Ashworth College in GA, a diploma in interior design from San Francisco Interior Design Institute, and he is working on his MBA in Business Administration from Ashworth University, GA. Two years ago he discovered his passion for the culinary world of specialty coffee, a rapid growth sector, and he has become a certified barista at Specialty Coffee House in Hollywood, CA. He frequents events held by the Specialty Coffee Association of America, is certified as a specialty barista by the International Academy for Specialty Coffee, and holds a Level 1 Barista Certification from the same.
The UNHCR mandate is a refugee act designed to prevent and reduce statelessness, and to protect stateless people. If civil society has an interest in elevating the issue of statelessness, the government should have a solemn obligation to do the same. All who are citizens of the United States know that citizenship is a critical part of our daily life and a source of pride. However, for Mikhail as stateless individual, these aspects are a constant challenge, and a statue he strives to reach to find a shared sense of dignity. Without the rights to have rights, he is the most vulnerable person in the world. He has lived with us for sixteen years in the U.S., the only place he considers as his home and his country. He does not have any other place to go. Los Angeles is his home, his life, his job and his carrier.
Everyone that puts in their fair share, works hard, is honest and plays the game the way we’ve all agreed it should be played should have the ability to belong, to consider themselves part of a larger community of America.
Mikhail truly did not know he could not travel outside the U.S. to another part of the U.S. that is considered a territory, and he did not know that his World Passport that was issued according to the rules and regulations of the U.N. Declaration for Human Rights would cause all this trouble.
According to Due Process Clause any person, lawful or illegal or conditional resident, including stateless people and those on order of supervision, are granted the same fundamental, undeniable constitutional rights granted to all Americans. The Due Process and equal protection clauses embodied in US Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every "person", and are not limited to US citizens.
Most people take passport for granted, except those who have ever been without one. They know how confining it is to be without the right paperwork. They know what it's like to take the first step into the ghastly limbo of statelessness. These people live in the fear of being rounded up and deported, often to countries they don't know, or simply to be confined for unknown duration, for having committed no unlawful act. The life of stateless person is one of degradation, and exposure to fear.
Stateless people in our country should be protected, they are not criminals, and should not be treated as such. In order to do so we have to petition the U.S. authorities to join, sign and ratify 1954 UN Convention, relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.218.48.237 (talk) 02:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent statelessness individuals