Opinion ID: 217072
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Revocation of Citizenship

Text: Although not every revocation of citizenship is persecution, ethnically targeted denationalization of people who do not have dual citizenship may be persecution. The basic rule under international law is that it is within each state's domestic jurisdiction to decide who are its nationals. Richard C. Visek, Creating the Ethnic Electorate through Legal Restorationism: Citizenship Rights in Estonia, 38 Harv. Int'l L.J. 315, 346 (1997). In recognition of each state's sovereign right, denying citizenship to a noncitizen applicant is not necessarily persecution. There is, however, a fundamental distinction between denying someone citizenship and divesting someone of citizenship. Haile v. Gonzales (Haile I), 421 F.3d 493, 496 (7th Cir.2005); see also United States v. Mandycz, 447 F.3d 951, 956-57 (6th Cir.) (recognizing that, although  naturalization [is] a privilege to be given or withheld on such conditions as Congress sees fit, the government faces a rigorous burden of proof in denaturalization proceedings (emphasis added)), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 956, 127 S.Ct. 414, 166 L.Ed.2d 274 (2006). Even divestiture of citizenship is not persecution when, as a result of altered boundaries, a person finds himself a citizen of a different country. For example, when Czechoslovakia divided into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, each former citizen of Czechoslovakia was told to choose between becoming a citizen of the Czech Republic or of Slovakia. Haile v. Holder (Haile II), 591 F.3d 572, 573-74 (7th Cir.2010) (Posner, J.). The affected individuals did not become stateless; they simply became citizens of a new[ly created] state. Id. at 573. Because the choice that citizens of former Czechoslovakia faced was a necessary consequence of Czechoslovakia ceasing to exist, posing that choice did not persecute any group. See Timothy William Waters, The Blessing of Departure: Acceptable and Unacceptable State Support for Demographic Transformation: The Lieberman Plan to Exchange Populated Territories in Cisjordan, 2 Law & Ethics Hum. Rts. 9, 26 (2008) (asserting that it is generally legitimate to redefinerevokecitizenship when states change their frontiers. The affected individuals cannot be left stateless, but so long as they are assigned to a new sovereign, then there is evidently no objection in principle (footnote omitted)). Practical consequences of denationalization vary. Sometimes denationalized citizens face immediate turmoil, such as when Ethiopia rounded up and expelled ethnic Eritreans whom Ethiopia denationalized during a war with Eritrea, Haile II, 591 F.3d at 573, or when Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which denationalized Jewish citizens as part of the Holocaust, id. at 574. In contrast, ethnic Russians in the early 1990s could remain in Estonia and even become naturalized citizens of Estonia if they demonstrated high level knowledge of the Estonian language. A.R. 400 (Aksel Kirch, Russians in Contemporary Estonia Different Strategies of the Integration in to the Nation-State, (Oct. 15, 2000), available at www.ies.ee/15102000. htm) (During the years 1992-2000[,] Estonian citizenship [was] given through naturalisation to about 125 thousand people and about one half (65 thousand) of them [were] Russians.). The country also provided noncitizen residents with documents for foreign travel, emigration, [and] repatriation. A.R. 385 (Estonia: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003). During that same time, however, Estonia extended some rights and privileges only to citizens: the rights to vote in nationwide elections and to join political parties, id. at 386, [5] protection for members of minority groups, id. at 388, and the right to purchase land, A.R. 372 (Open Society Institute Report, Minority Protection in Estonia (2001)). See also Lowell W. Barrington, The Making of Citizenship Policy in the Baltic States, 13 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 159, 162 (1999) (documenting differences between the rights of Estonian citizens and noncitizens, including protect[ion] from deportation and extradition, assurance of the opportunity to resettle in the country after leaving temporarily, and the ability to hold[] national or local political office). Regardless of the practical ramifications that befall a denationalized person, the inherent qualities of denationalization are troubling when a country denationalizes a person who is not a dual national, thereby making him or her stateless. Statelessness is a condition deplored in the international community of democracies. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 102, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality op.); see also Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 161 n. 16, 83 S.Ct. 554, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963) (The drastic consequences of statelessness have led to reaffirmation in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15, of the right of every individual to retain a nationality.). The essence of denationalization is the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society because, [i]n short, the expatriate has lost the right to have rights. Trop, 356 U.S. at 101-02, 78 S.Ct. 590. While any one country may accord [a denationalized person] some rights, ... no country need do so because he is stateless. Id. at 101, 78 S.Ct. 590. The calamity is `not the loss of specific rights, then, but the loss of a community willing and able to guarantee any rights whatsoever.' Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 161, 83 S.Ct. 554 (quoting Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism 294 (1951)) (internal alteration marks removed). The United States Supreme Court has described denationalization as a form of punishment more primitive than torture. Trop, 356 U.S. at 101, 78 S.Ct. 590. Accordingly, because denationalization that results in statelessness is an extreme sanction, denationalization may be per se persecution when it occurs on account of a protected status such as ethnicity. Although the status of [s]tatelessness ... does not entitle an applicant to asylum, Maksimova v. Holder, 361 Fed.Appx. 690, 693 (6th Cir. 2010) (citing 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)(A)), a person who is made stateless due to his or her membership in a protected group may have demonstrated persecution, even without proving that he or she has suffered collateral damage from the act of denationalization. Haile II, 591 F.3d at 574 (remanding for the BIA to decide in the first instance whether denationalization that leaves the applicant stateless is persecution); Mengstu v. Holder, 560 F.3d 1055, 1059 (9th Cir.2009) (same). Neither the IJ nor the BIA considered whether Estonia's citizenship law amounted to ethnically targeted denationalization, but there is reason to suspect that it did. By limiting citizenship to pre-1940 citizens and their descendants, Estonia manipulated its citizenship rules to exclude ethnic Russians who immigrated during the Soviet occupation. This limit even applied to residents such as Stserba who were born in Estonia. Although Estonia's policy of rolling back citizenship to 1940 did not mention ethnicity, the citizenship policy contained an irreducible ethnic element because it base[d] citizenship for those who had become resident[s] during the Soviet era on language ability or knowledge of historystratagems that effectively denationalized most Russians. Waters, The Blessing of Departure, supra, at 31; A.R. 348 (Open Society Institute Report) (`[I]t was a desire to obtain or at least to approximate ethnic purity, ... not consideration of legal consistency, that led to such an approach towards the citizenship question in Estonia.' (quoting Rein Müllerson, former Deputy Foreign Minister of Estonia) (ellipses in original)); A.R. 332 (Pabo Letter) (Basically, [the affected residents] were Russians and citizens of other republics of former USSR.); cf. Mengstu, 560 F.3d at 1059 (finding a nexus between a protected ground and Ethiopia's deportation and denationalization of Eritreans because Ethiopia targeted Eritreans during an ethnically tinged civil war). Stserba was a victim of Estonia's policy. The IJ found that Stserba had lost [Estonian] citizenship after Estonia regained independence. A.R. 68 (IJ Op.); see also Reply Br. at 5 (She was a citizen of Estonia when it was one of the Soviet Union republics.). In other words, Stserba did not switch citizenship due to the dissolution of her country of prior citizenship or as an incident of changed boundaries. Rather, she was an Estonian citizen [6] who was stripped of citizenship and became stateless [7] for several years on account of her ethnicity. A.R. 119 (2/21/08 Hr'g Tr., Stserba) (People like me, Russians, we didn't have any citizenship.). Even though the IJ did not believe that Stserba had shown any adverse consequences which arose or which affected her as a consequence of her two year[s] or less of lost citizenship, A.R. 69 (IJ Op.), Stserba may have suffered past persecution simply because she became stateless due to her ethnicity. [8] After a petitioner demonstrates past persecution, the government may rebut the presumption that the petitioner fears future persecution by showing a change in circumstance. The fundamental change in circumstance language in 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(b)(1)(i)(A) encompasses a fundamental change in personal circumstances. 65 Fed.Reg. 76,121, 76,127 (Dec. 6, 2000). Reinstatement of her citizenship may be a change in Stserba's circumstances that rebuts the presumption that she fears future persecution. The IJ, however, did not consider changed circumstances as a basis for denying asylum because the IJ did not find that Stserba had endured past persecution. Although the IJ mentioned that clearly, [Stserba] was able to regain her citizenship within a relatively short time, A.R. 69 (IJ Op.), the IJ was describing the limited ramifications of losing citizenship, not whether regaining citizenship rebutted a presumption that Stserba fears future persecution. In fact, the IJ described this case as very sympathetic and a case in which the Court would prefer to be able to grant asylum. Id. at 77. When the BIA has failed to consider a legal issue central to resolution of the petitioner's claims, the appropriate remedy is remand to the agency for further consideration. Mapouya v. Gonzales, 487 F.3d 396, 405 (6th Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore REMAND the case to the BIA to determine (1) whether ethnically motivated revocation of citizenship that leaves a petitioner stateless qualifies as persecution within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). If the answer to that legal question is yes, then the BIA must determine, as a factual matter, (2) whether Estonia denationalized Stserba on account of her ethnicity, and if so, (3) whether reinstatement of Stserba's citizenship is a changed circumstance that rebuts the presumption that Stserba fears future persecution. On this last point, we note that [n]othing in the regulation suggests that the future threats to life or freedom must come in the same form or be the same act as the past persecution. Bah v. Mukasey, 529 F.3d 99, 115 (2d Cir.2008). The government cannot rebut the presumption that the petitioner fears future persecution solely by showing that the particular act of persecution suffered by the victim in the past will not recur. Id. Thus, Stserba may have a well-founded fear of persecution due to Russian ethnicity that is premised partly on her prior loss of citizenship, even if she does not have a well-founded fear of again losing citizenship.