2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) The notice board displayed the tattered list of people who had been granted Thai citizenship through s 7 bis (2). The columns contained information such as names, addresses, old identification numbers and new identification numbers. According to an official letter issued by the district officer on the notice board, 385 cases of children of migrants have been solved using this law. As a proof, there was a fading photo of happy and smiling children at the swearing-in ceremony organised in honour of King Bhumibol’s 70th reigning anniversary. Another announcement stated: filing for citizenship according to s 7 bis (2) and registration of aliens do not cost anything except administrative fees set by the laws such as fees for issuing certified copies of documents. If anyone claims authority or asks for bribes, please inform the District C Registration Office. When we approached a stressed-looking officer to ask for a record of Nida’s personal information, she insisted that the District had given all the forms to respective village heads. But Nida’s village head was nowhere to be found. When Nida’s aunt managed to get a hold of him on the phone, it was his turn to insist that the paperwork was with the District office. We were stuck in this back-andforth game, with no one able to tell us where Nida’s paper was. When lunchtime came, all the officers locked up the building and went for lunch despite a large number of people waiting to be served. The afternoon of waiting offered a glimpse of hope when Nida’s relative appeared and said he knew the right-hand man of the village head. This man, he said, was much more helpful than his boss. When he appeared, he took us to the back entrance of the building to talk to an officer who had access to some papers to look for Nida’s but, at the end, nothing came to fruition. Nida and her mother decided to take one more day off from their school and work to wait, while I had to return overseas. Through text messages, Nida kept me informed. At one point she wrote, ‘they said they would search for my paper in all villages’. It was unclear who ‘they’ were. Later she wrote ‘they said they found the paper but as it turned out, it was not mine. It was of another girl with a similar face’. Apparently, there were many young girls with the ‘same face’ in the same situation. I put Nida in touch with a Shan youth activist I know, who was making his way to District C to help negotiate and track paperwork for people like her. At the end, they still could not find her paper and the activist said they would have to wait for the District Officer’s return to address the issue. The paperwork never turned up. Although I had previously heard various accounts from my other stateless participants about the difficulties they experienced in dealing with Thai bureaucracy, as a middle-class Thai citizen I had never truly experienced the feelings of limbo, oppression and powerlessness until that day. Only one day spent chasing the paperwork with Nida was enough to overwhelm me with frustration and confusion. Despite the accountability flow-chart or buzz words advertising bureaucratic efficiency all over the District Office, all I witnessed was chaos and the desperation of those who kept waiting without knowing what to do next and how long they had to wait. Yet, the picture of those children getting Thai citizenship on the notice board almost serves as a reminder that citizenship is possible, not something completely out of reach. At the same time, the picture and all those flowcharts also hint that, if you do not get citizenship, it must be because you do not have the right documents and you only have yourself to blame. 232