UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). Researchers identified and recruited participants with the help of stakeholders, including NGOs and UNHCR. The UK project team compiled a database of over 400 gatekeepers who could potentially refer participants to the study (UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). Three research teams also incorporated information from interview participants’ immigration files in order to verify details of their immigration stories and gain insight into stateless persons’ contacts with immigration authorities (Austria: UNHCR 2017a; Belgium: UNHCR 2012; United Kingdom: UNHCR and Asylum Aid 2011). In three countries where stateless individuals were not interviewed, researchers sent a survey to stakeholders who they thought were likely to encounter stateless persons in order to understand their situation (Iceland: UNHCR 2014b; Norway: UNHCR 2015b; Sweden: UNHCR 2016b). This section will highlight key problems faced by stateless persons in the United States and their families. Many of these challenges do not apply exclusively to stateless persons. Undocumented persons, for example, experience the same obstacles to work and the same threat of arrest, detention, and deportation that all unauthorized persons do. The deleterious impact of these threats on affected individuals, families and communities has been well documented (Coon 2017; Boehm 2017; Kerwin 2018). Unlike nationals, stateless persons cannot receive support or protection from an embassy or consulate. Nor can they return to their country of previous habitual residence. Stateless persons also have difficulties obtaining identification documents. Lack of an ID card can make even the most basic interactions difficult to negotiate. However, undocumented stateless persons face additional hurdles due to their statelessness. The lack of a legal framework for them forces most “to remain in … perpetual legal limbo, unable to leave the United States, but also unable to escape the stigma of living under a removal order and needing to justify their presence to ICE detention and removal authorities in regular intervals” (Baluarte 2015, 365). In addition, unlike nationals, stateless persons cannot receive support or protection from an embassy or consulate. Nor can they return to their country of previous habitual residence. Stateless persons also have difficulties obtaining identification documents. Lack of an ID card can make even the most basic interactions difficult to negotiate. CMS’s interviews with 48 stateless persons offered a first-hand view of the challenges facing stateless persons. Given the small sample size, the findings from these interviews should not be taken as representative of the entire stateless population. However, they provide powerful insights into the lived experiences of 48 stateless persons in the United States. CMS interviewed individuals born in 14 countries, including from many groups described in the profiles, such as Rohingya from Myanmar, stateless ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan, citizens of the former Soviet Union, and stateless Romani from France and The Netherlands.69 The interviewees included 14 69 The 14 countries were Estonia, Eritrea, Georgia, Myanmar, the USSR, France, The Netherlands, Nepal, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Bhutan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Kuwait, and Ethiopia. 68