Padilla and colleagues urge DHS ministers to accelerate action to protect stateless persons in the United States

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security, Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-Md.-08) and Gerry Connolly (D-Va.-11), joined 14 House members in recommending that Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), take action to fully implement enhanced protections for stateless persons present in the United States.

Stateless persons have neither nationality nor citizenship of any country in the world and are therefore particularly vulnerable. This situation is caused by events beyond the control of any individual. The lack of status can lead to significant financial difficulties, separation from relatives and long or even indefinite immigration detention.

The letter follows bicameral legislation that lawmakers reintroduced earlier this year. Law on the Protection of Stateless Personsto create a new protected status and a path to citizenship for stateless persons living in the United States.

“As sponsors of bicameral legislation to protect stateless persons and their families in the United States, we deeply appreciate the actions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to combat statelessness, including enhancing protections,” wrote the legislators. “…statelessness is a global problem that requires a comprehensive, tailored response.”

“Stateless non-citizens are disproportionately affected by long periods of detention in the United States because no country is obligated to accept the deportation of a stateless person,” the legislators continued. “We urge ICE to consider statelessness as a mitigating circumstance in favor of denying enforcement actions when making decisions regarding arrests, detentions, removal actions, and the execution of removal orders.”

Lawmakers made several recommendations to DHS, including:

• Consolidation of adjudication of all applications for provisional parole and deferred action by stateless persons in a single USCIS unit;
• Consider granting parole and suspension applications on the grounds of statelessness for a period of three years instead of one year and allowing simultaneous applications for work permits; and
• Develop guidelines to better identify stateless persons during their first encounter with ICE.

In addition to Senators Padilla, Cardin and Durbin and Representatives Raskin and Connolly, the letter is signed by Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), as well as Representatives Jamaal Bowman (DN.Y.-16), André Carson (D-Ind.-07), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas-20), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.-07), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.-12), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.-02), Jerrold Nadler (DN.Y.-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DD.C.), Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.-03) and David Trone (D-Md.-06).

The full text of the letter can be found here and below:

Dear Minister Mayorkas,

As sponsors of bicameral legislation to protect stateless persons and their families in the United States, we deeply value the actions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to combat statelessness. This includes enhancing protections for stateless persons in the United States, beginning with your December 2021 Commitment to Enhancing Protections for Stateless Persons in the United States (“DHS Commitment”). As recognized in that Commitment, statelessness is a global problem that requires a comprehensive, tailored response.

We also deeply appreciate the actions that the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Service (USCIS) has taken to date to combat statelessness, including the development of a process for determining statelessness and efforts to reduce barriers to accessing legal immigration assistance and benefits for stateless persons. We urge you to consider the following recommendations to further enhance protections for stateless persons and to ensure consistency and coordination among DHS components with respect to such persons.

USCIS has updated its policies to consider an individual’s potential statelessness as a factor in discretionary decisions, including applications for parole and deferred action. USCIS has also established a specialized unit to conduct advisory statelessness assessments for immigration judges on applications for immigration benefits by a potentially stateless noncitizen. To ensure consistency and leverage the extensive expertise USCIS has already developed, we recommend consolidating adjudication of all parole and deferred action applications by stateless noncitizens into a single unit of USCIS, regardless of whether those noncitizens have a final order of removal or are in immigration court proceedings and would generally fall under the jurisdiction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This approach would ensure consistency in the Department’s handling of statelessness issues. We also urge USCIS to consider granting parole and deferred action based on statelessness for a period of three years rather than one year and to allow concurrent filing of work authorization applications.

Stateless noncitizens are disproportionately likely to spend long periods of time in immigration detention in the United States because no country is required to accept the deportation of a stateless person. We urge ICE to consider statelessness as a mitigating circumstance in favor of denial of enforcement action when making decisions regarding arrests, detentions, removal actions, and the execution of removal orders. To achieve this goal, we recommend that ICE develop policies to better identify stateless noncitizens upon their first encounter. This includes allowing ICE attorneys and officers to leverage the expertise of the specialized USCIS unit and request an advisory report on an individual’s potential statelessness when faced with cases that show signs of statelessness in removal actions or in detention. This would allow ICE to be fully informed of an individual’s statelessness when deciding whether to exercise discretion in enforcement actions.

We appreciate your efforts to improve protections for stateless persons in the United States, a goal we wholeheartedly support. We request a response by July 11, 2024, on the steps DHS will take to ensure that the Department’s stated commitment is fully implemented by all divisions of the Department. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

###