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 People like Tatianna are called “legal ghosts.” 15 These individuals, who are sometimes also referred to as “nonindividuals” and “nowhere individuals,” are stateless. 16 Today, an estimated 12 million individuals around the world are stateless, which means that they are not considered nationals by any State. 17 Although solid statistics are unavailable, their numbers could range anywhere from several hundreds to four million in the United States. 18 Stateless individuals present a challenge to international and state law because countries that want to deport them have no place to send them, and yet they are reluctant to confer upon them a path to citizenship or permanent residence if they are not eligible for such relief under their own country’s immigration law. 19 Despite this tension, it is in the best interest of the United States to establish a legal framework that protects stateless individuals. The gap in humanitarian protections for stateless individuals unnecessarily taxes the United States immigration system. 20 Removing a person who has nowhere else to go is taxing on immigration resources, court resources, and detention facilities. 21 Not only does this present a legal problem for both domestic and international law, it also presents a human problem for the stateless individual. 22 Because stateless individuals are not considered legal residents of where they live, they have limited access to birth registration, identity documentation, education, health care, legal employment, property ownership, political participation, and freedom 15. Helping the World’s Stateless People, supra note 1, at 2. 16. Id.; see also TEDX TALKS, Nowhere People: Exposing a Portrait of the World’s Stateless, YouTube (Feb. 24, 2016), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9DD6MZj5Z4&list=WL&index=3 &t=0s [https://perma.cc/RJ5L-XLXZ]. 17. U.N. High Comm’r for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR Action to Address Statelessness: A Strategy Note, at 4 (Mar. 2010) [hereinafter UNHCR Action to Address Statelessness]. 18. See John Corgan, The Stateless in the United States, CTR. FOR MIGRATION STUD., https://cmsny.org/the-stateless-in-the-united-states/ [https://perma.cc/2J8Q-SJBM]; Nick Keppler, Trump’s Agents are Trying to Deport a Stateless Man with Nowhere to Go, VICE (Aug. 28, 2017, 5:30 PM), https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nee99z/trumpsagents-are-trying-to-deport-a-stateless-man-with-nowhere-to-go [https://perma.cc/MR6V-K5FZ]. 19. See Keppler, supra note 18. 20. David C. Baluarte, Life After Limbo: Stateless Persons in the United States and the Role of International Protection in Achieving a Legal Solution, 29 GEO. IMMIGR. L. J. 351, 359 (2015). 21. Id. 22. UNHCR Action to Address Statelessness, supra note 17, at 4. 360