Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 53 (2021) Ghosts in America: Working Towards Building a Legal Framework for Stateless Individuals in the United States conform to the idea that when individuals cannot rely on their home states to protect them from persecution, they should be able to turn to other states for protection. 210 B) Current approaches to statelessness The primary concern guiding the United States’ approach to stateless individuals is that stateless individuals cannot be lawfully deported because, unlike regular foreign nationals, they have no state to return to. 211 To provide context, there are two ways to apply for asylum under the current United States immigration framework: affirmative asylum and defensive asylum. 212 An applicant applies for asylum affirmatively if they are physically present in the United States and they file within one year after their arrival in the United States.213 Applicants apply for asylum affirmatively with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 214 If an affirmative asylum applicant’s request for asylum is denied or if the applicant was apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the applicant applies for asylum defensively in front of an Immigration Judge (IJ). 215 One of the first steps in the United States’ defensive asylum process is the designation of a country of removal.216 The problem is that an applicant who is stateless has no country of removal to designate or even if a stateless applicant designates a country of removal, that designated country may not accept that applicant’s return. 217 This complication makes hosting stateless individuals undesirous for the United States because the United States does not want to become a “dumping ground” for other countries’ unwanted minorities. 218 Consequently, most of the United States’ current 210. Id. at 973; Citizens of Nowhere, supra note 3, at 18–9 (citing Haile v. Holder, 591 F.3d 572, 574 (7th Cir. 2010)). 211. Kelly Staples, How to Eliminate Statelessness, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (Nov. 13, 2014), https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/11/how-to-eliminatestatelessness/ [https://perma.cc/A55P-77RN]. 212. Fact Sheet: U.S. Asylum Process, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM (Jan. 10, 2019), https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-u-s-asylum-process/ [https://perma.cc/H67G-U6AF]. 213. Id. 214. Id. 215. Id. 216. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(b)(1)–(2); Citizens of Nowhere, supra note 3, at 19. 217. Adam L. Fleming, Around the World in the INA: Designating a Country of Removal in Immigration Proceedings 7 IMMIGR. L. ADVISOR 4, 10 (2013). 218. Staples, supra note 211. 380