Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/06 Children Born in Australia’s Asylum System Asher Hirsch Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/06 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion December 2017 Author biography Asher Hirsch is a Senior Policy Officer with the Refugee Council of Australia and a PhD Candidate at Monash University Faculty of Law. Author email asher.hirsch@monash.edu Key words Australia—citizenship law—asylum system—asylum seekers—refugees Abstract This paper highlights the precarious situation for stateless children born in Australia’s asylum system. While they have a right to Australian citizenship under international law, the Australian Government has placed a range of hurdles in their path to delay and deny citizenship to certain groups within this cohort. Those whose parents arrived by boat after July 2013 face indefinite detention in Australia’s offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. For those born in Australia, they are not granted neither a permanent visa nor citizenship. The only available option for this group is to apply for citizenship under Australian law. However, applicants have faced extensive delays, due in part to the difficulty in proving their identity.