If USCIS does not approve the asylum claim, and the applicant does not otherwise have lawful status in the United States, the individual is placed in removal proceedings and her case is referred to the EOIR immigration court. Once before the court, the individual may request asylum as a defense to removal. If unsuccessful, the asylum seeker risks having a removal order issued against her. See generally INA § 208, 8 U.S.C. § 1158, 8 C.F.R § 208. 104 Because affirmative asylum applicants whose claims are referred by USCIS have the opportunity for a de novo hearing before an Immigration Judge at EOIR, some of these 359 stateless individuals may also be included in the EOIR statistics for 2005 to 2010. For this reason, there will necessarily be some overlap between the 2005-2010 USCIS statistics on affirmative asylum claims filed by stateless individuals and the 2005-2010 EOIR data on defensive asylum applications filed by stateless people. As such, the total numbers from both agencies cannot be added together. 105 461 represents the total of the last four columns (Denied, Abandoned, Withdraw, Other) in the EOIR Asylum Statistics chart Individuals Identified as Stateless or “No Nationality”. It should also be noted that these statistics do not include other categories from the statistical summary that may represent additional stateless individuals who were miscategorized, such as those from the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia or Palestinians. 106 Document on file with UNHCR. 107 Issues concerning statelessness can come before the federal courts in several ways. Persons in removal proceedings may appeal adverse decisions from the immigration court to the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board or BIA), the administrative review body, and if the BIA affirms that adverse decision, they may seek review by a federal circuit court of appeals to review the decision of the Board. Individuals who are detained following a final order of removal can challenge their detention by filing a habeas corpus petition in one of the U.S. District Courts with jurisdiction over their custodian. 108 Some of the inherent limits to this overview of court decisions are that not all stateless individuals will have the resources or knowledge to appeal their decisions and that the word “stateless” does not necessarily appear in every case that may address issues relevant to stateless individuals in the U.S. In all, there are 13 federal circuit courts of appeals that cover 11 Solutions for the Stateless in the U.S. different state regions and the District of Columbia. There were no reported cases raising stateless issues during the 1980 – 2011 period in the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The thirteenth court, also located in the District of Columbia, is the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which only hears cases on certain specific subjects, such as customs and patents, but not immigration matters. The jurisdiction where the most of these cases arose was the Ninth Circuit with 15 cases, and the jurisdiction with the fewest cases was the Tenth Circuit, with one case. The Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over cases arising from the immigration courts and U.S. District Courts in California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii. The Tenth Circuit has jurisdiction over cases arising from those cases arising in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. 109 See, e.g., Poplavskiy v. Mukasey, 271 Fed.Appx. 130 (2nd Cir. 2008) (native of the Ukraine); Stserba v. Holder, No. 09-4312 (6th Cir. 2011) (native of Estonia). 110 See, e.g. Paripovic v. Gonzales, 418 F.3d 240 (3rd Cir. 2005) (ethnic Serb born in Croatia rendered stateless by the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia); Koljenovic v. Ashcroft, 2006 WL 3325651 (M.D. Pa. 2006) (rendered stateless by successor state Serbia and Montenegro). 111 See, e.g. Tesfamichael v. Gonzales, 469 F.3d 109 (5th Cir. 2006); Dulane v. INS, 46 F.3d 988 (10th Cir. 1995) (Eritrean who fled to a refugee camp and never acquired citizenship). 112 See, e.g. Zabadi v. Chertoff, 2005 WL 3157377 (N.D. Cal. 2005) (person recognized by the court as a stateless Palestinian born in Kuwait); Elfarra v. Ashcroft, 88 Fed.Appx. 141(8th Cir. 2004) (person recognized by the court as a stateless Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia). 113 Bozoian v. Ashcroft, 118 Fed.Appx. 309 (9th Cir. 2005). 114 Ahmed v. Keisler, 504 F.3d 1183, 1191 (9th Cir. 2007) (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A)); see also Ahamed v. Gonzales, 166 Fed.Appx. 942 (9th Cir. 2006). In 2008, the high court of Bangladesh ruled that Biharis are nationals of the country and are to be treated as such. As a result, they are no longer considered stateless. Md. Sadaqat Khan (Fakku) and Others v. Chief Election Commissioner, Bangladesh Election Commission, Writ Petition No. 10129 of 2007, Bangladesh: Supreme Court, 18 May 2008, available at: 45