4 Introducing ‘unwanted’ noncitizens ‘Unwanted’ noncitizens here refers to those noncitizens with whom a State or States would rather have no relationship at all. This chapter considers in particular the situation for irregular migrants and stateless persons within a State built on liberal democratic principles. While the contexts for those defined in these two ways are different, both can be characterised by State non-recognition of its relationship with individuals, putting them at risk of extreme vulnerability with regard to core capabilities. There are other commonalities. For example, many stateless persons in fact lack travel documents. If such individuals want to travel internationally, they must do so irregularly. Conversely, irregular migrants or their children may end up effectively or formally stateless, or at risk of statelessness, because of lost documents or difficulties with birth registration, for example.1 This chapter focuses largely on ‘unwanted’ noncitizens in situ. This is because in these cases, the nature of the individual-State relationship is particularly easy to uncover. There is much discussion here of their vulnerability, but irregular immigrants and stateless persons should not only or even primarily be seen as vulnerable. They are active agents (albeit constrained) who are potentially challenging a State and the State system. The rights and interests of ‘unwanted’ noncitizens are usually the last to be considered, if at all. Yet their relationships with the States where they live can tell us much about the construction of noncitizen-vulnerability and how dehumanisation, stigma and shame create and recreate this vulnerability in new ways. Existing arguments for the rights of these ‘unwanted’ noncitizens often rely upon humanitarian concerns and rights which, as they are seen as outside the institutional framework, can sometimes appear to be supererogatory. Yet, irrespective of a particular State’s intentions or interests, a State based on liberal democratic principles has a fundamental and substantive relationship with its noncitizens, including those with whom it would rather have no relationship at all. Noncitizens in general, and ‘unwanted’ noncitizens in particular, are made vulnerable to that State, a vulnerability that is reinforced rather than neutralised by its denial. 1 Jacqueline Bhabha (2011) Children Without a State: A Global Human Rights Challenge, MIT Press; Laura van Waas (2009) Nationality Matters: Statelessness Under International Law, Intersentia Publishers p. 12.