Over 50 countries deny women equal rights to acquire, change, or retain their nationality.336 Many of these countries are represented in the denaturalization cases reviewed for this report, in which denaturalization proceedings were brought against women from Bangladesh, Iran, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia. Additionally, individuals hailing from countries with a history of arbitrarily denying citizenship on a racially or ethnically discriminatory basis are also represented, including the Dominican Republic and Myanmar. State succession. Redrawing national borders always creates a risk of statelessness. According to the UNHCR, “the emergence of new states and changes in borders…[may leave one] without a nationality as a result of these changes.”337 Naturalized Americans affected by shifts in national boundaries or the dissolution or emergence of states will most likely be living abroad and could miss crucial registration periods for acquiring or retaining another nationality. If loss of nationality results in these situations and the individual has no other nationality, denaturalization will leave them stateless. Some of the cases reviewed for this report include individuals who were born in or arrived from a state that does not exist (such as, Yugoslavia). Disputed, unincorporated, or non-state territory. A person may be stateless if they were born in a disputed territory, an area ruled by an entity whose independence is not internationally recognized, or on territory that may be controlled by a country but not considered part of that country, so that the inhabitants are not considered citizens under the country’s law. For example, case files examined for this report included at least one person from Palestine, and other individuals referred to as “Palestinian.” U.S. Complicity in the Moral and Individual Hazards of Statelessness The Supreme Court has recognized statelessness as a “condition deplored in the international community of democracies,” which has “disastrous consequences.”338 The U.S. Department of State has noted the extreme vulnerability of the stateless person: “Without citizenship, stateless people have no legal protection and no right to vote, and they often lack access to education, employment, health care, registration of birth, marriage or death, and property rights. Stateless people may also encounter travel restrictions, social exclusion, and heightened vulnerability to sexual and physical violence, exploitation, trafficking in persons, forcible displacement, and other abuses.”339 Despite this strong moral opposition to statelessness, the United States has not acceded to either the 1954 or 1961 Conventions on Statelessness and U.S. law does not define statelessness, accord any protections to stateless individuals in the country, or provide an avenue for the stateless to acquire lawful status or citizenship on the basis of their statelessness alone. Should a stateless person go through the U.S. immigration system and receive a final order of removal, there would be nowhere for them to be removed to, resulting in indefinite supervision and the risk of perpetual detention.340 80 UNMAKING AMERICANS