Homegrown Statelessness in Malaysia examination suggests, should be on the types of people subject to the plight of statelessness and why. The problem of statelessness is home-grown, indigenous, and one borne by people who have deep roots to the country of Malaysia. The five categories of stateless persons have genuine, effective and significant links to Malaysia. Their link is substantiated by their birth in the federation, and the fact that they are stateless. Further proof of an effective link can point to a ‘blood’ or legal connection through a parent where necessary but the Federal Constitution does not necessarily require this — the fact of birth in Malaysia with the fact that one is stateless after the first year of one’s birth, in law, is sufficient. C There are Built-In Restrictions in the Law for Foreigners The third reason is that there are built-in clear restrictions on who and how stateless persons can acquire citizenship. Public discourse in Malaysia reveals a guarded approach to the stateless issue due to a misunderstanding that if citizenship is resolved for any stateless person, then all stateless persons will have access to citizenship no matter what link that person may have to Malaysia. The laws governing citizenship in Malaysia, however, provide restrictions on how foreign nationals may obtain citizenship. For example, migrants and refugees do not qualify automatically by virtue of the fact that they were not born within the Federation. Further, they do not have a Malaysian parent. They must proceed through the naturalisation process if they have no genuine or effective link to Malaysia. For migrants or refugees who marry a Malaysian citizen, there are opportunities for registration as a citizen, but even that process has requirements that the migrant must meet (including number of years of residence; speak Malaysian sufficiently and others) to indicate their genuine and effective link beyond marriage to a Malaysian citizen. 132 Legal practitioners may point to the children of migrants or refugees who are born in the Federation. It is important to point out that citizenship by operation of law only applies to those born in Malaysia that have no other citizenship. Children who have no parent who is a Malaysian citizen only qualify if they are also stateless following the first year of their birth. There certainly may be cases where there are migrant children who are entitled by operation of law to citizenship but this is because they are stateless and also have no hope of obtaining citizenship from a country other than Malaysia. Substantiating this kind of statelessness is beyond the scope of this paper. The mere opportunity to obtain citizenship elsewhere is not the same as being a citizen of another country. In this sense, while migrants themselves may not be entitled to argue they have a genuine and effective link (unless they have shown long-standing residence), their children may be considered to have such a link by virtue of their birth within Malaysia. The mechanics of how such children (and their parents) may navigate the process to obtain citizenship by operation of law or by naturalisation is outside the scope of this paper. CONCLUSION One academic was interviewed for this exploratory study and indicated that citizenship is a sensitive issue politically in Malaysia, even during the conception 132 Federal Constitution (Malaysia) art 19. 123