Table 6: Grants of Finnish nationality (2005-2012) 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Stateless persons 51 39 45 46 32 29 23 82 Unknown 1 1 3 12 11 21 11 38 1 0 1 2 9 11 65 119 5683 4433 4824 6682 3413 4334 4794 9581 Not known All nationalities 78 Source: Migri, September 2012 and November 2013.78 2.2.2.2 GROUPS NOT COVERED BY ADMINISTRATIVE DATA A person’s records remain active in the RA in case of a negative decision on a residence permit and a decision on return of the person, until the person has left the country or the deportation has been successfully implemented. Persons who have been issued with negative decisions and who remain in Finland but do not cooperate with the authorities and choose to live clandestinely are not covered by any administrative data. Such persons would typically be rejected asylum-seekers avoiding removal from the country or other persons who have not been granted an extension of their previous residence permit, as well as those facing expulsion due to crimes committed in Finland. The number of such persons generally and the number of such stateless persons in Finland is not known; the Aliens police (who is responsible for implementation of decisions on return, refusal of entry and removal from the country) and Migri are unable to provide such information, which cannot be deduced from other sources either.79 The Finnish Refugee Advice Centre, which is the biggest NGO providing legal advice to asylum-seekers in Finland and which also deals with other immigration questions, launched a project in April 2012 called Paperittomat, which means “paperless” or “persons without documents”. This project, inter alia, looks into the situation of migrants living in Finland illegally, as well as other situations of foreigners in limbo, which may also be related to statelessness. At the time of writing this report, it was too early to draw any conclusions with regard to the profiles of persons the project has come across.80 Nevertheless, this project may in the future provide some valuable information as to the extent of the numbers and circumstances of stateless persons living in Finland illegally. There are also stateless persons who have sought and have been granted other residence permits on the grounds of international protection needs, e.g. residence permits for purposes of studies, work and family reunification in Finland, but there are no reliable statistics regarding this type of residence permits for stateless persons. Migri has concluded that the initial registration of nationality in the registration system in cases of residence permit applications is often incorrect, especially when it comes to registering a person’s nationality as stateless or unknown. As the nationality, or the lack of it, is not of any significant relevance when granting residence permits based on other grounds than international protection, the mistakes have often remained in the system even after the mistake has been noticed in the process and a decision has been taken.81 Any data on residence permits granted for stateless or persons with unknown nationality outside the asylum procedure would therefore be unreliable and such statistics are thus not provided in this report. 22 78 Data from Statistics Finland: http://www.stat.fi. 79 E-mail from Migri of 5 September 2012 and telephone conversation with the Aliens Police on 5 September 2012. 80 Information on the project in Finnish on the homepage of the Refugee Advice Centre, Pakolaisneuvonta http://goo.gl/VbkTTd Telephone conversation with the Refugee Advice Centre on 7 September 2012 and 4 November 2013. 81 E-mail correspondence and telephone conversation with Migri, 10 September 2012. MAPPING STATELESSNESS IN FINL AND