After a coup in 2008, the new government suspended repatriation while it replaced its national population register with a biometric one. It resumed repatriation, but many Black Mauritanians experienced difficulties reclaiming citizenship due to new policies (ibid., 394). In 2010, the government enacted a new citizenship law restricting citizenship to those who could prove ancestry in Mauritania. It also removed Bambara from the list of Mauritania’s official languages, making it harder for some Black Mauritanians to reclaim citizenship (ibid.). In 2011, the government began a Census designed to identify unauthorized residents, and some allege that Black Mauritanians have faced obstacles to recognition in the context of the census (Kohn 2011). Many Black Mauritanian returnees to date have not been able to reinstate their citizenship. Black Mauritanians who have arrived in the United States since 1989 are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. The status of the Western Sahara territory currently remains unresolved after a 30-year dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement. Following the withdrawal of Spain from the territory in February 1976, the Polisario Front declared the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Moroccan military took control of the territory shortly thereafter, and about half of the territory’s population fled, mostly to Algeria. Those who remained in the territory are entitled to Moroccan citizenship, but some activists and individuals who fled to Algeria face difficulties attaining Moroccan nationality (Manby 2015, 389). Most Sahrawi remain in refugee camps in Algeria where the SADR government operates in exile. The United Nations considers the Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory.” Most of these persons cannot claim Moroccan nationality. Sahrawi refugees are eligible for SADR identification cards and passports, but the SADR is only recognized as a state by several dozen governments worldwide (ibid., 388). The United States, for example, does not recognize the SADR. Consequently, many Sahrawis who possess only a SADR passport experience difficulties traveling abroad (ibid., 390). Most residents of these camps are not entitled to Moroccan nationality. Algeria issues short-term passports to Sahrawi refugees so they can travel to countries that do not recognize the SADR, but these passports do not convey citizenship and few have obtained Algerian nationality (ibid.). Some refugees have also obtained Mauritanian citizenship through family members (ibid.). Sahrawis outside the Western Sahara are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness (ISI 2014, 122). Persons of mixed Ethiopian and Eritrean heritage who arrived in the United States on or before 1998 are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. In 1993, Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia through a referendum. Following its independence, it adopted a nationality law granting citizenship to all those born to an Eritrean parent who could trace their ancestry to Eritrean territory in 1933. Those who entered Eritrea between 1934 and 1951 were also entitled to a certificate of nationality upon application. In 1994, Ethiopia adopted a new constitution granting citizenship to anyone who has a parent with Ethiopian citizenship. Prevailing laws, however, stipulated that those acquiring Eritrean citizenship would lose Ethiopian citizenship (Manby 2015, 327). 34