Scholars and practitioners have favored unrestricted jus soli as a preferable mode of citizenship acquisition: by granting nationality to all persons born within the territory, statelessness is limited to one generation.25 Many experts have argued that jus soli provisions are the best way to prevent statelessness26 and can contribute to a more inclusive citizenship regime.27 In jus soli regimes, government authorities have less discretion in granting citizenship than in jus sanguinis regimes.28 When accompanied by a robust, rights-oriented birth registration system, jus soli–based legal frameworks provide sound protection of children’s right to nationality and prevent statelessness by suggesting that nationality is secured for every child born in the territory.29 Ensuring nationality upon birth provides benefits into future generations, by avoiding transference of statelessness from parent to child. Granting nationality to every child born in a territory can promote the integration of long-term residents of a country by recognizing their children as nationals, and thus facilitating—both pragmatically and symbolically—the inclusion of future generations.30 New trends in migration and the fact that certain Latin American states have had increased net emigration31 have led some countries in the region to include or expand jus sanguinis provisions within their nationality legal framework.32 This expansion would seem to further lower the risk of statelessness among children born in the Americas, and Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, and others have positioned themselves as international leaders in nationality protections and the reduction of statelessness.33 Yet within Latin America there are marked differences among states in their approach to statelessness and nationality. The extent of the legal protection conveyed by citizenship status varies from country to country. Different factors may undermine the effective implementation of the existing legal frameworks in practice. These barriers include: the limited number of government offices in remote regions, delays caused by highly bureaucratic procedures, multiple government entities with responsibility for citizenship, the level of discretion public officers hold, ethnic and racial discrimination by government officials, and highly onerous evidentiary requirements set by specific domestic legislation. Brazil’s and Colombia’s territories include the Amazon rainforest, which has few government services. A 2015 statistical report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put the total number of stateless persons reported in the Americas at 210,032. It attributed virtually all of these, 210,000, to the Dominican Republic. It found 13 stateless persons in México, 2 in Brazil, 12 in Colombia, 1 in Nicaragua, 2 in Panama, 1 in Honduras, and 1 in Aruba.34 Scholars generally agree that the continental Americas have a lower rate of statelessness than other regions.35 However, these numbers suggest undercounting; there is no clear understanding of the extent and scope of statelessness in the region, and the focus remains almost exclusively in the Dominican Republic. As 26 INTRODUCTION