We are United Stateless
United Stateless is a national organization led by stateless people whose mission is to build and inspire community among those affected by statelessness, and to advocate for their human rights.
Our Mission
United Stateless is a national organization led by stateless people whose mission is to build and inspire community among those affected by statelessness, and to advocate for their human rights.
We do this by:
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Connecting, encouraging, and empowering a community of stateless people in the U.S.
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Raising awareness of statelessness issues in the U.S. as well as globally, and educating the community/public/stakeholders about the issue of statelessness
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Advocating for the human rights of stateless people and changes to domestic laws to introduce a path to citizenship for the stateless in the U.S.
Our Vision
... a world in which everyone's human right to Nationality is respected and upheld.
Our Goals
We understand that the problem of statelessness is being continuously ignored by the United States government, and this is largely due to the fact that there is very little known about stateless persons in the U.S. As constituents, we have been silent, living in the shadows, unable to participate in elections, and often too afraid to share our stories. We are changing this NOW, for we DO have a human right - as defined in Article 15(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to a nationality". Based on this fact we absolutely believe that the U.S Government must immediately take significant steps to reform current domestic laws based on United Nations recommendations:
​Actions that the U.S. government must take:
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Establishment of stateless status determination procedures.
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Create a process to provide a path to U.S. Citizenship for all stateless people who qualify and reside in the U.S., regardless of immigration status.
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Provide protections from detention and a temporary status with work authorization to all stateless people while their status is being resolved.
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Accede to both United Nations Conventions:
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UN Convention relating to the status of Stateless Persons (1954);
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UN Convention on the reduction on Statelessness (1961);
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To achieve these goals, United Stateless is working to connect stateless people in the U.S. with each other and with our program. Our goals include networking with NGOs — global and domestic — reaching out to the government, to media, to immigration law practitioners and others to raise awareness for statelessness in the U.S.
Our Questions
U.S. non-profit organizations that focus on human rights have not yet made stateless issues a priority. There is a good reason for this: stateless people living in the U.S. have never been organized into one community. In the past, each case has been addressed individually.​ No one even knows how many of us are present here. Only this year (2020) have we seen any statistics emerge in regards to statelessness in the US (read the CMS report). No one knows how many stateless people become victims of crimes and do not find protection. We hope that through our work we will be able to gain some insight into the following questions:
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How many families were separated with no chance of reunion?
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How many stateless people in the United States can not obtain proper healthcare because of their statelessness?
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How does statelessness affect their mental and physical health?
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How many suicide cases do we have among stateless people in America?
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How many stateless people are there who are homeless?
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How many stateless persons are lingering in detention?
