For an individual with no nationality, expulsion from one State where they reside to another poses particularly daunting difficulties. A recent case has been brought to UNHCR’s attention in which a stateless person was twice expeled from Tajikistan to Turkmenistan, and back.348 The UNHCR’s NGO survey of southern Kyrgyzstan, suggests that expulsion is not often applied to punish administrative violations. Some 7 expulsions were ordered, for example, out of 218 violations of the passport regime identified by internal affairs bodies during 2008 in Osh province. But as the law does not observe the principle of family unity, the impact of these expulsions may have been disproportionately large. In northern Tajikistan, the Migration Service told UNHCR that it tried to avoid disrupting families, and so would fine rather than expel stateless persons with invalid documentation. They said no one had been expeled from Soghd Region, where most stateless persons are long-term residents married to nationals. UNHCR learned of one foreigner who was expeled from Turkmenistan in 2000, leaving behind a small daughter who was at risk of statelessness until she was adopted by a Turkmen national and acquired Turkmen nationality. Official figures are not easily accessible from either State, or Uzbekistan. In April 2010, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Internal Affairs announced it had opened 41 criminal cases for violations of migration legislation, and administratively expeled 3,189 persons for “gross violations of migration rules” in a four-day operation called ‘Migrant’. Thirteen of these expelees had come from outside the CIS and 3,176 from within. In May 2010, the Ministry announced that it had opened a further 27 criminal cases for violating migration law, and expeled nearly 2,000 more people – 1,792 of them reportedly by court decision. Twenty six of the expelees came from outside the CIS and 1,766 from within. The reports did not refer to the nationality of the individuals involved – or whether they were stateless.349 Nor did it mention the age or gender of these individuals. 348 This case was raised by the government representatives of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan themselves at the UNHCR-OSCE Regional Roundtable on the Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and Protection of Stateless Persons in Central Asia in Ashgabat in December 2009. 349 Briefings to the press in April and May 2010 in Astana, see www.kz.mvd. ~ 54 ~