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 legal status, which makes stateless persons less likely to disclose their status. 320 Therefore, it is currently impossible to determine statelessness without exhaustive, individual screening. 321 Even if we were able to identify stateless populations, they live and are settled in many different parts of the country. 322 Many stateless individuals report having United States citizen-children and grandchildren. 323 Several of them own their own businesses and homes. 324 Many attended schools in the United States and are active members of their community.325 Displacing them and moving them to a new state would uproot their lives and create substantial burdens on them and their families. 326 The second concern is whether individuals from different countries, speaking different languages and adhering to different customs, would be able to communicate and co-exist. 327 Most successful (and unsuccessful) attempts to create a new state in the United States were prompted by groups of individuals with a common interest living in the same region. 328 For example, Utah’s addition as a state was spurred by the Mormon exodus to the Salt Lake basin in the mid-1840s. 329 In the early twentieth century, 46 counties in Texas and 23 counties in Oklahoma tried to form their own state called Texlahoma because people in rural areas of northern Texas and western Oklahoma were in desperate need of roads but felt ignored and “forgotten” by their state legislatures. 330 These examples show the large role that a group of likeminded individuals play in the development of a new state. In contrast, the stateless population is far less homogenous in their ethnic, religious, and cultural background and interests. 331 It will be difficult to locate a region in this country with enough stateless individuals to support the formation of a new state for stateless individuals in that location. 320. See id. 321. Id. at 14. 322. See id. at 53–54. 323. Id. at 69. 324. Id. 325. Id. 326. See id. 327. Sasi, supra note 308. 328. See Beyond 50: American States That Might Have Been, NPR (Apr. 2, 2010 12:15 PM), https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125142955 [https://perma.cc/XB8S-UMTJ]. 329. Id. 330. Id. 331. See Corgan, supra note 18. 392