Statelessness At Home 109 since birth. Despite a country she proudly calls home and two loving parents who do both hold a nationality (namely, Vietnamese), Hanna has somehow missed out. Hanna’s situation confirms just how widespread the phenomenon of statelessness is. Statelessness is often and rightly described as a global challenge, affecting over 10 million people around the world.2 This approach portrays statelessness as a problem of significant magnitude, but can also make it seem a rather anonymous and somehow far-away issue. This article demonstrates the daily reality of statelessness by taking a local perspective, as a problem that affects ‘us’, through the personal story of a member of the very Law School that produces this journal. By discussing Hanna’s experiences, this piece contributes to a better understanding of statelessness, while also using her situation as a backdrop for discussing some of the difficulties inherent in the current policy response to statelessness here at home, in the Netherlands. 2 Experiences of a Stateless Student at Tilburg Law School 2.1 Hanna’s Statelessness Hanna was born in Germany in 1992, the daughter of two Vietnamese parents.3 In 1996, she moved with her parents to the Netherlands where they applied for asylum. After many years waiting to regularise their stay, in 2007, Hanna and her parents received a temporary residence permit with a limited validity of five years (verblijfsvergunning regulier voor bepaalde tijd) based on an immigration amnesty.4 Her residence permit has since been extended and is currently valid until 2018, providing her legal residence as an alien in the Netherlands. 2 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘Q&A: Campaign against statelessness gains around’ (September 2013), <http://www.unhcr.org/5231d3109.html> accessed 30 October 2013. 3 Hanna did not acquire German nationality at birth because children born in Germany to foreign parents can acquire nationality only if one of the parents has been a legal ordinarily resident in Germany for eight years- a criterion which her parents did not fulfil. See German Nationality Act, section 4(3) under 1. 4 This amnesty regularised the stay of irregular migrants who had either applied for asylum before the first of April 2001 or had reported themselves at the alien police or Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) to apply for asylum before that date. Besluit van de Staatssecretaris van Justitie van 12 juni 2007, nummer WBV 2007/11 houdende wijziging van de Vreemdelingencirculaire 2000, Staatscourant 13 juni 2007, nr. 111 / pag. 12 tilburg law review 19 (2014) 108-116