Statelessness Working Paper Series 2017/04 irregular stay in Belgium in order to facilitate their apprehension and return.92 This practice can be problematic in preventing persons in irregular stay from declaring a birth by fear of repercussions and thus can present a barrier in acquiring a nationality for their child. 5.2.2. Registration in the Registers Acquisition of Belgian nationality is confirmed by the registration of the child in the population register as Belgian. While the information on the birth declaration is collected by the municipality where the birth took place, the registration in the aliens or population register is executed by the municipality in which the child has his or her residence, which will be the same as where the parents reside. The municipalities are responsible for the aliens register and the population register, they ensure their management and updates. 93 Aliens authorised to reside more than three months in Belgium are registered in the Aliens register while aliens admitted or authorised to settle in Belgium are registered in the population register. 94 Recognised refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection are therefore first registered in the aliens register, and, after the five years of residence necessary to be allowed to establish themselves in Belgium, in the population register.95 However, registered asylum seekers are registered in the waiting register until they receive a decision on their asylum claim. 96 The Immigration Office is responsible for the waiting register as well as its management and update. Also, a recent circular recalls that “the collection of asylum seekers' children cannot be done by the municipality nor the national register service, only the Immigration Office, Directorate Asylum, is competent for their collection.”97 This means that following the birth of the child of registered asylum seekers, the Immigration Office becomes responsible for his or her registration. Between the responsibility of the municipality to hold the population registry—where every person residing in Belgium is registered—and the responsibility of the Immigration Office to collecting the information on asylum seekers' children, it is difficult to establish which entity is responsible to identify whether the child is stateless, and can benefit from Article 10 BNC and obtain Belgian nationality. Such a division of competence can become problematic as no single department is responsible to assess the nationality of the child and therefore establish whether he or she is stateless and could obtain Belgian nationality, which is translated in practice as being registered in the population register. 6. Implementation of the Legislation by the Municipalities 6.1. Data Collection Methodology As it has been established, in Belgium, the municipalities are competent for receiving the birth declaration and registering Belgian nationals and foreigners authorised to reside in Belgium in the population registry and aliens’ registry. In order to monitor how the safeguard clause found in Article 10 BNC is applied in practice towards asylum seekers depending on their legal status, a survey was designed in the languages (Dutch/French) used by civil servants in order to collect information from the municipalities. The choice of semi-structured questions has been preferred in order to allow both 92 Belgium, Circulaire relative à l’identification d’étrangers en séjour irrégulier, 23 November 2009. SPF Intérieur, les registres de la population, (2014), http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fr/population/faq/les-registres-de-lapopulation/. 94 Belgium, Loi sur l'accès au territoire, le séjour, l'établissement et l'éloignement des étrangers (Law on entry to Belgian territory, residence, establishment and removal of foreign nationals), 15 December 1980, Articles 12 and 17. 95 Ibid., Article 15. 96 Ibid., Article 12, indent 2. 97 Foreign Public Service Intérieur, Registre national des personnes physiques - annulation de dossiers - attribution d'un nouveau numéro de dossier (National Register of persons - cancellation of files - attribution of a new file number), 24 April 2010, http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/fr/rn/circulaires/DossiersRN-Annulations.pdf, p. 2. 93 14