Fisher: Citizenship, Federalism, and Delayed Birth Registration 2024] C ITIZENSHIP, F EDERALISM, AND DELAYED BIRTH R EGISTRATION 77 V. BIRTH REGISTRATION, U.S. CITIZENSHIP, AND STATELESSNESS This Part explores the connection between birth registration, U.S. citizenship, and statelessness. Having seen that some individuals born in the United States and entitled to citizenship lack recognition of their status because their births are unregistered, we come now to recognize that these individuals are not just in a situation of legal limbo: at least some of these individuals are stateless. A person who was born in the United States may simultaneously be entitled to U.S. citizenship but, if not considered as a citizen by the United States or another state, be stateless. 159 Reports on stateless people in the United States often emphasize that U.S. nationality law has robust protections against statelessness because of birthright citizenship for children born in the United States. 160 Existing literature has considered statelessness in the United States to be experienced exclusively by people who arrive in the United States through immigration. 161 But this Article challenges the view that all stateless individuals in the United States must have been born elsewhere. There is at least some gap between people who are born in the United States and entitled to U.S. citizenship, on one hand, and those who can prove their birth in the United States to the satisfaction of government authorities. 162 A stateless person, as defined in the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, is a person “who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.” 163 Statelessness is not just an absence of citizenship but also includes situations in which the 159. U.N. HIGH C OMM’R FOR R EFUGEES [hereinafter “UNHCR”], GUIDELINES ON S TATELESSNESS NO. 1: THE DEFINITION OF “S TATELESS P ERSON” IN ARTICLE 1(1) OF THE 1954 C ONVENTION R ELATING TO THE S TATUS OF S TATELESS P ERSONS ¶ 15, U.N. Doc. HCR/GS/12/01 (Feb. 20, 2012), http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 4f4371b82.html [https://perma.cc/3934-3ED4] (“The reference to ‘law’ in [the definition of statelessness] should be read broadly to encompass not just legislation, but also ministerial decrees, regulations, orders, judicial case law (in countries with a tradition of precedent) and, where appropriate, customary practice.”). 160. See, e.g., Stephanie Sy & Lena I. Jackson, Hundreds of Thousands of Stateless People are Living in Legal Limbo in the U.S., PBS NEWSHOUR, Apr. 5, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/hundreds-of-thousands-of-stateless-people-are-living-in-legallimbo-in-the-u-s [https://perma.cc/U5VP-YUGX] (“Statelessness may be hard to grasp for many Americans, because the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship for anyone born here.”); C TR. FOR MIGRATION S TUD., S TATELESSNESS IN THE UNITED S TATES: A S TUDY TO ESTIMATE AND P ROFILE THE US S TATELESS P OPULATION 11 (2020) (“Generous US citizenship policies—anchored by the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship to ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”—operate as a strong check against statelessness for those born in the United States.”) 161. C TR. FOR MIGRATION S TUD., S TATELESSNESS IN THE UNITED S TATES, supra note 161, at 3–5 (outlining the survey’s methodology). 162. See supra Part III. 163. See Statelessness Convention, supra note 14, at art. 1(1) (emphasis added). Published by IdeaExchange@UAkron, 2025 29