encountered through its immigration admission, benefit, and enforcement programs. It sought data, for example, on persons ordered removed, but who remained in immigrant detention or who had been released from custody under an order of supervision.18 CMS also requested counts of admitted non-immigrants, lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and refugees who had been identified as stateless or who matched the profiles developed by CMS. CMS also approached the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to obtain data on stateless refugees and asylees who accessed ORR-funded benefits and services. CMS did not receive any of the data it requested from DHS or ORR. CMS did not conduct individual status determinations of persons meeting its profiles of potentially stateless persons or those at risk of statelessness, or of the persons it interviewed. Statelessness must be determined on a case-by-case basis. These determinations require extensive knowledge of the individual’s circumstances and the relevant nationality and citizenship laws in their states of origin and prior residence. As a result, the CMS report identifies persons who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. Statelessness – not being considered “a national by any State under the operation of its law”19 – has many causes. It can occur when a state dissolves into two or more states, and residents cannot secure citizenship under the restrictive and sometimes discriminatory laws of the new states, or if the successor states lack the administrative capacity to register their residents or do not afford them sufficient time to register. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, for example, and the subsequent implementation of new citizenship laws in successor states created a significant stateless population (Fullerton 2014; ISI 2014; UNHCR and OSJI 2012; Helton 1996). Similarly, certain individuals from the former Yugoslavia and Ethiopian-born persons of Eritrean descent could be stateless due to revisions to citizenship laws following state succession (ISI 2014). “I was born in Estonia in 1981. (...) If you were born before 1990 in Estonia, in order for you to have automatically citizenship of Estonia by birth, either one of your parents had to be Estonian citizen. My mother was born in Russia, but she moved to Estonia before I was born. My father was born in Ukraine. I grew up there until 1999. I never lived anywhere else. I had this “Alien Passport” in Estonia. I’m thinking this is also my fault. I could have become Estonian citizen but it never really bothered me because I considered that country as my own and I was also too young to understand. [When I was in the United States,] I applied for passport, and I received a letter from the Consulate telling me that the fact that I was born in Estonia does no longer grant me any rights there.” Stateless man from Estonia 18 An order of supervision (OSUP) sets the terms of release for persons in removal proceedings or that have received orders of removal. These conditions can range from reporting requirements, to wearing GPS monitoring devices. Potentially stateless persons or those potentially at risk of statelessness may be among those ordered removed who cannot be removed. 19 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, art. 1(1), Sept. 28, 1954, 360 U.N.T.S. 117. 9