CHAPTER 4: THE IDENTIFICATION OF STATELESS PERSONS IN THE OPERATION OF IMMIGRATION CONTROL This chapter examines the profiles of the stateless and “unreturnable” persons identified and interviewed by the researchers. It sets out how protections for stateless persons in immigration law have declined and the way in which the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s policy on stateless persons who are seeking residence because they have no other State in which to live became more restrictive. It also examines the current approach of the UK Border Agency in identifying stateless persons in the operation of immigration control. Name: Country of origin: Date of arrival in UK: Time in detention: Time in limbo: Current immigration status: Nischal (Participant 6) Bhutan June 2010 N/A 6 months None Nischal, aged 26, arrived in the UK in June 2010. He is an ethnic Nepali and was born in Bhutan in 1993. After his father had been killed by the authorities, he was forced to flee with his mother to India when he was just six years old. He had previously been denied Bhutanese citizenship because of his ethnicity and had never possessed a passport or identity card. He lived with his mother in Darjeeling as part of a community of ethnic Nepalese refugees from Bhutan, which was broadly tolerated by the Indian authorities but given no legal status or any opportunity to regularise their immigration status or naturalise as Indian citizens. His mother was able to make an income from a small restaurant set up with an Indian friend, in whose name the business had to be registered. Nischal was able to attend school for five years, but eventually the fact that he was undocumented meant he could not continue, so he joined his mother working at the restaurant. Meanwhile his mother had made unsuccessful efforts to register as a refugee with the municipal authorities in Darjeeling. There was no possibility of returning to Bhutan. After his mother’s death in 2007, Nischal was pressured to become involved with protests by the Nepalese community. He was reluctant because he had no immigration status and on one occasion he was beaten up for refusing to participate in a demonstration. Eventually his mother’s friend, with whom he had been living since his mother’s death, decided to sell the restaurant business and use Nischal’s share to finance him in leaving India. A people smuggler provided false documents and arranged his travel abroad. On arrival, he discovered that his destination had been the UK. Nischal claimed asylum. In July 2010, his application was refused. The UK Border Agency disputed that he was stateless, finding that he could be returned to India as his country of 62 Mapping statelessness