Sunshine Sentinel

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introduced measures to support stateless noncitizens in the U.S., enhancing their access to immigration benefits and refining data collection processes, according to a recent press release.

“All over the world, people who are stateless live with fear and uncertainty,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said.

Stateless individuals, those without formal citizenship or nationality from any nation, often face numerous adversities, from barriers to accessing essential services to obtaining legal protections. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will introduce a series of procedures to assist its officers in ascertaining and authenticating an applicant's statelessness. This rollout encompasses the update of existing training materials, the institution of enhanced training routines and the formulation of standardized measures for internal reviews relating to potential statelessness in conjunction with an individual's application.

In addition, the release mentioned the involvement of specialized USCIS personnel. These experts will guide adjudicating officers with advisory assessments, offering insights on the implications of statelessness for an individual's application or benefit request. The press release also provided a glimpse of what could be considered as evidence or documentation that may be utilized by USCIS officers in their evaluations.

An important facet of this guidance, as per the release, is its potential to augment USCIS’s ability to collate nuanced data on stateless individuals residing in the U.S. The press release cited statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which estimated that around 218,000 people in the U.S. are possibly at the brink of statelessness.