4. While the U.S. applies jus soli at birth to all children born within the territory of the United States6 and jus sanguinis to qualifying children born abroad, it does not guarantee the right to a nationality for children who arrived in the United States after birth, and who would otherwise be stateless. In other words, concerns exist that policy proposals can deny nationality from children born to non US citizens on US soil.7 5. The United States is home to over more than 21 million naturalized citizens. Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, U.S. citizens born or naturalized in the U.S. are equal under the law and hold the same rights. From the 1960s to the early 2000s, denaturalization cases were extremely rare. However, since the early 2000s, the criteria for denaturalization have quietly expanded to include national security cases, for example, and today denaturalization is increasingly used as an immigration enforcement tool affecting people belonging to minority communities.8 6. U.S. law offers no definition of statelessness, nor is there a procedure for identifying stateless persons, protecting them and resolving their situations through facilitated naturalization. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides a path to naturalization that requires non-citizens to first acquire lawful permanent residence. Indeed, adjusting status to lawful permanent residency for some people requires leaving and reentering the country, something that is not possible for most stateless people. The lack of a legal framework and procedures which recognize and address the unique position of stateless persons, leaves them in limbo with no solution or access to justice or rights. The Stateless Experience in the United States The effects of Covid-19 on stateless persons in the U.S. 7. Covid-19 has disproportionately affected minority groups, including stateless people, in the US. While the true scale of the disparity is unknown, the available studies all reveal that the minorities have suffered most acutely during the pandemic9. 8. In the 2020 mapping project completed by CMS, it was determined that stateless people are more likely to serve in frontline jobs in essential industries, in positions requiring in-person human interactions. These would include working as grocery clerks, janitorial staff, cleaning medical facilities, as well as working on farms and in factories as meat, poultry, and fish processors. These jobs pose a much higher risk of exposure and vulnerability to the Covid-19 virus. Additionally, many immigrant communities in which minorities and stateless populations are concentrated in the US are located in midwestern and southern states where lockdowns were delayed, and the threat from the virus was downplayed. 6 With some exceptions – for example, those born in American Samoa are not citizens by birth. For instance, in October 2018, President Trump suggested that he could sign an executive order that would reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to take away the right to U.S. citizenship for children born to non-U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. For more information, see: https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/08cbf518-8a19-4601-897b-7187f04cea27/unmaking-americans-insecurecitizenship-in-the-united-states-fact-sheet-20190916.pdf. 8 OSJI, Unmaking American. Insecure citizenship in the United States- Fact Sheet, https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/08cbf5188a19-4601-897b-7187f04cea27/unmaking-americans-insecure-citizenship-in-the-united-states-fact-sheet-20190916.pdf. 7 2