According to the current national legislation, most of the interviewed persons could only consider filing an application for a tolerated stay visa.91 However, to obtain the visa the applicants must prove that it is impossible to leave the Czech territory on account of reasons independent of their will. For stateless persons, this means proving in cooperation with the authorities that they are not considered as nationals by any State and that therefore no State would accept them back to its territory. This has proved extremely difficult in practice because the embassies of the countries of former habitual residence or otherwise relevant in their situation often refused to communicate and certify whether they were their nationals. However, even in cases where the interviewed persons had documents confirming the absence of nationality, there was no guarantee that they would obtain the tolerated stay visa. Many of them have been issued a decision on administrative expulsion or even a criminal expulsion for their irregular stay and a failure to leave the country. As a result, they are unable to meet the requirement of non-inclusion in the register of undesirable persons. The fact that the decision on expulsion could not be (even repeatedly) carried out does not automatically constitute a legal ground for taking the individual out of the register of undesirable persons and for granting a tolerated stay visa or otherwise resolving the residence status. Such persons, thus, find themselves in a deadlock situation where they were formally ordered to leave the country and are obliged to comply with such an order but are unable to, without the authorities considering that the order is impossible to comply with. For want of other options, some interviewed persons repeatedly opted to apply for international protection. However, as the asylum procedure is not intended to protect rights of stateless persons, unless they are also refugees, their asylum claims were usually rejected. « « I have a problem that I cannot get a passport because I am stateless. I have no papers and I always get the exit visa, but I cannot leave.” At least a hundred times over I have thought about how it could be solved. But there is no way out.” The interviews have also revealed that stateless persons have often hardly understood their legal situation, despite their long stay in the Czech Republic. They understood that they face difficulties with regularising their stay but do not understand the circumstances, reasons and procedural details. Legal procedures were deemed to be too complicated. They often considered their situation hopeless and did not understand why there was no legal option open to resolve it. « I got used to the fact that I have to wait. (…) Maybe, there will be something for me in the laws. I did nothing, I hurt nobody. I did not flee from anywhere; I have just arrived and have had bad luck.” 5.3 Opinions on the procedure under Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act Given the aforementioned lack of legal avenues to regularise their residence, one of the very few options available to most interviewed stateless persons in this regard was to lodge an application for determination of statelessness. According to the conducted interviews with the stateless persons, the statelessness determination procedure pursuant to Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act has not led to the desired outcome. The MoI has not reacted to any of the applications as of November 2018. Four interviewed persons lodged their applications already in 2017 and have received no reply from the MoI. The MoI remained inactive even in cases where the person concerned brought an action before the domestic administrative court against the procedural delays. One interviewed person confirmed that he had succeeded with his action and that the administrative court decided in November 2017 on 91 34 Another rather theoretical possibility is to file an application for a permanent residence permit for reasons worth special consideration. However, this type of residence permit is granted only exceptionally at the discretion of the administrative body. Faces of Statelessness in the Czech Republic