Report #1: Impoverished and Marginalised in Assam Summary What are the fallouts of a global health crisis on those who occupy the margins of society? This report presents the findings of the Right to Nationality Network’s investigation into the impact of the coronavirus on the lives of those who have been rendered, or are in the process of being rendered, stateless in Assam. Through qualitative data collection across seven districts, we attempted to uncover the adversities and hardships faced by the affected population and identify the extent to which they were able to access government COVID19 response, welfare and emergency relief provided by the state. The report begins with an introduction to the pandemic in the context of close to 2 million people facing the risk of statelessness and discrimination they might likely face. The pandemic has arrived soon after these 2 million were excluded from the National Register of Citizens published in August 2019. Close to 1000 declared foreigners in detention were released in view of the pandemic. This study tries to document their hardships and exclusions they faced. The methodology section explains how primary data was collected from 67 respondents that belonged to families facing the risk of statelessness in eight districts of Assam. COVID19 indeed contributed to the design of the methodology as face-to-face interview and travel to locations of the respondents was not possible. Most interviews were held remotely with assistance from enumerators who lived in the same areas as the respondents. Confidentiality of the data collected from respondents was important and was handled with utmost care. This is followed by a section on the crisis of citizenship in Assam that entailed the NRC and the Foreigner Tribunals. We also review the impact of the exclusions arising from NRC and the functioning of FTs during the pandemic. This section also deals with how the government tried to address the health and economic problems faced by the people due to the pandemic and how the humanitarian crisis of floods further pushed people to deprivation. The section of findings analyses the data collected through interviews with respondents. Documentation of the legal, socio-economic and COVID19 related challenges faced by respondents is documented in this section and individual case experiences are described. Recommendations emerge from review of the situations as found from the study of secondary sources as well as from the primary data collected. Our recommendations are in the context of the deprivations faced by people at risk of statelessness as well as others in the remote areas of Assam. 1