ANNEX: PERSONAL STORIES OF STATELESS PERSONS Note: names and other personal details of study participants have been changed User Name: Igor Country of birth: Soviet Union (Kazakhstan) Arrival in the Czech Republic: 2000 | Stateless since: 2012 | Current legal status: none Igor has been living in the Czech Republic since he was 18 years of age. He has spent half of his life there. For over six years now, he has no citizenship, which was officially certified by the embassy of his country of origin. He originally comes from Kazakhstan. He left that country due to increasing hatred and discrimination against the Russian minority, to which he and his family belong. After his father was killed, he arrived in the Czech Republic with his mother and sister based on a short-term visa and valid travel documents and applied for asylum. The proceedings took several years to be finally rejected. For several more years, Igor lived in the country based on a long-term residence permit for business purposes. In the meantime, his mother and sister obtained permanent residence. Igor then lived with his Ukrainian girlfriend who lives in the Czech Republic based on a permanent residence permit. However, Igor then fell victim to a fraud by an intermediary who offered him to arrange an extension of his residence permit in exchange for money. As a result, Igor lost his long-term residence permit and it became difficult to obtain another one afterwards. At the same time, the passport of his country of origin expired. When he went to the Kazakh embassy to arrange a new passport, the embassy employees informed him that Kazakhstan would not issue him with a new travel document. It turned out that Kazakhstan no longer considered him a citizen. Igor then applied for international protection (asylum) again. Upon lodging the application, the police initiated administrative expulsion proceedings. During the proceedings, Igor informed the police that he believed he was a stateless person. The police did not reflect the statement in its decision in any way and decided on administrative expulsion without the possibility to return for three years. However, its enforceability was postponed until the final decision in the asylum procedure was made. The second application for international protection was eventually rejected after several years. For the entire time, Igor has lived in the Czech Republic with his girlfriend. They have been together for 10 years and have a son who was born three years ago; the child has a permanent residence permit. Igor wishes to marry his girlfriend and have a second child. However, his current residential situation and the lack of documents makes this impossible. « Yeah, she’s a good girl, mother and woman. I would have married her immediately if I had a passport. But I do not have it, so I cannot. (...) When I was still in the [asylum] procedure, we were thinking of a second child, but clearly we are postponing it now. Because with my papers, you will not do it. After being rejected in the asylum procedure, Igor was issued a departure order. However, he is unable to leave the Czech Republic because he has nowhere to go. At the same time, he has his entire family there and has lived there for his entire adult life. He cannot imagine being forced to leave his son and girlfriend. He tried to apply for a tolerated stay visa and for a permanent residence but without success. « I’ve got nothing in Kazakhstan. I don’t have its citizenship, I have no passport, I can’t even travel there. I don’t understand why they ignore the fact that I have a family here... He now lives in great uncertainty and permanent fear of being detained based on the previously imposed administrative expulsion. He is afraid that it would cause trauma to his son and family. He has lodged an application pursuant to Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act to be recognized as a stateless person. However, the MoI has yet to respond. In administrative decisions, he is referred to as a Kazakh citizen. UNHCR Czech Republic 55