450 VANDERBILT/OURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [VOL. 46:443 United States, persons who are granted asylum may eventually become U.S. citizens. 27 Stateless persons fall into one of two formal categories: "de jure" defines those "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law,"28 and "de facto" describes persons outside the country of their nationality who are denied diplomatic protection or assistance by that country.2 9 The 1961 Convention provides for international protection for de jure stateless persons, but it also recommends that persons who are de facto stateless should be protected as well, to enable them to acquire an effective nationality. 30 The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a UN agency, is the designated organization to investigate the status of persons who may be stateless and to assist those persons in making claims to the relevant government authorities.31 The UNHCR charge also includes "a global mandate for the identification, prevention and reduction of statelessness and for the international protection of stateless persons."3 2 De facto statelessness has also been used to describe persons unable to document or prove nationality and those whom a government does not recognize as citizens despite a colorable claim to the statute's definition to be interpreted similarly to the Convention's definition of refugee). See THOMAS ALEXANDER ALEINIKOFF ET AL., IMMIGRATION AND 27. CITIZENSHIP: PROCESS AND POLICY 814 (7th ed. 2012) (discussing how asylees "have a routine mechanism for adjusting to permanent resident status after one year in the United States" and how "they are not precluded from adjusting their status if they otherwise qualify, such as through marriage or employment"). 1954 Convention, supra note 14, art. 1, T 1. Brad Blitz and Maureen Lynch 28. explain: Under international law, de facto stateless persons are not covered by the provisions of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons even though it includes a non-binding recommendation that calls upon states to "consider sympathetically" the possibility of according de facto stateless persons the treatment which the Convention offers to de jure stateless people. Brad K. Blitz & Maureen Lynch, Statelessness: The Global Problem, Relevant Literature, and Research Rationale, in STATELESSNESS AND THE BENEFITS OF CITIZENSHIP: A COMPARATIVE STUDY 4, 5 (Brad K. Blitz & Maureen Lynch eds., 2009), available at http://www.udhr60.ch/report/statelessness-paper0609.pdf. 29. See What Is Statelessness?, UNHCR, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/ 49c3646cl58.html (last visited Feb. 19, 2013) (stating that although there is no universally accepted definition for the term, it is traditionally used to refer to someone who is "denied diplomatic and consular protection or assistance of his/her country"). See SOUTHWICK & LYNCH, supra note 11, at 1 (pointing to the Final Act of 30. the 1961 Convention's recommendation to treat de facto stateless individuals as de jure for purposes of acquiring nationality). See DIV. OF INT'L PROT., UNCHR, UNHCR ACTION To ADDRESS 31. STATELESSNESS: A STRATEGY NOTE 4-5 (2010), available at http://www.unher.org/ refworld/docid/4b9e0c3d2.html (explaining UNHCR's mandate for resolving the plight of the stateless). Id. 32.