Significant situations of statelessness have been identified around the world. Over 900,000 people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are stateless under the current citizenship law, which limits citizenship eligibility to members of certain ethnic groups.10 As of publication, 25 countries the world over do not permit women to transfer nationality to their children, allowing statelessness to occur where fathers are unknown, missing or deceased. Statelessness due to the dissolution of former states also continues to affect many people, including more than 565,000 people in Europe alone.11 Area such as West Africa, which have seen large-scale forced displacement, are also highly affected by statelessness. The estimated stateless population in Côte d’Ivoire alone is 694,000, many of whom are of Burkinabé descent and were ineligible for Ivorian nationality after the country gained independence in 1960. 12 While States have broad authority in the granting and withdrawal of nationality, this authority is balanced by the individual protections set out under international human rights law.13 The legal cornerstones defining the rights of stateless persons and the responsibilities of States are the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954 Convention) and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961 Convention).14 These conventions complement the broader international human rights framework that upholds the right to nationality,15 particularly for children, and provides protections from denationalization on discriminatory grounds such as race or ethnicity.16 Through a series of resolutions beginning in 1995, the UN General Assembly gave UNHCR the mandate to identify, prevent and reduce situations of statelessness and to ensure the protection of stateless persons. UNHCR works together with governments, civil society organizations, and stateless people to identify, prevent, and reduce instances of statelessness and to protect stateless people. Critical to that work is ensuring that stateless people understand their rights and have access to legal processes to reduce their hardships and resolve their statelessness. The legal community is a key stakeholder in this work. Because of protections in its jus soli citizenship law, U.S. law does not give rise to statelessness domestically. However, individuals who were born elsewhere and have migrated to the United States may be stateless. As citizens of nowhere, these individuals face a range of hardships as a result of their lack of a nationality.17 These hardships include detention or the threat of detention, long-term and potentially onerous immigration reporting requirements, barriers to employment, inability to travel internationally, long-term family separation, lack of access to services, and vulnerability to exploitation, among others. With the assistance of an immigration attorney knowledgeable in the area of statelessness and its implications for a stateless person’s claim for relief, these hardships may be reduced, if not altogether eliminated, for a stateless client. See UNHCR, GLOBAL TRENDS: FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN 2016, at 62, available at http://www.unhcr.org/enus/statistics/unhcrstats/5943e8a34/global-trends-forced-displacement-2016.html [hereinafter 2016 Global Trends Report]. 11 Id. at 64. 12 Id. at 60. 13See UNHCR, HANDBOOK ON PROTECTION OF STATELESS PERSONS at ¶ 55 (June 30, 2014) [hereinafter UNHCR Statelessness Handbook], available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b676aa4.html. 14 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, supra note 3. 15See UNHCR, GLOBAL ACTION PLAN TO END STATELESSNESS, at 27 (Nov. 4, 2014), available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/545b47d64.html. 16 An example is Article 9 of the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which guarantees that all women have equal rights to men in their ability to confer nationality on their children and with respect to acquisition, change, or retention of their nationality (typically upon marriage to a foreigner). The U.S., however, is not a signatory to CEDAW. 17 For a comprehensive look at the causes of statelessness in the United States, the hardships facing stateless people, and solutions to end these hardships, see CITIZENS OF NOWHERE, supra note 8. 10 4