Durbin, Cardin, Raskin Lead Colleagues in Urging DHS Secretary to Protect Stateless Persons in the U.S.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee; U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD-8); along with U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety; and U.S. Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11), of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs; and colleagues from the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, wrote to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recommending actions to enhance protections for stateless individuals present in the United States.

Stateless persons do not have nationality or citizenship in any country of the world and so are particularly vulnerable as a result. This circumstance typically is created by events well outside of any individual’s control, including discrimination, war and conflict, or changing borders and laws. This lack of status can result in significant financial hardship, separation from relatives, and lengthy or sometimes even indefinite immigration detention.

“As the sponsors of bicameral legislation to protect stateless individuals and their families in the United States, we deeply appreciate the actions that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken to address statelessness, including enhancing protections,” the lawmakers wrote.

They added: “To ensure consistency and to leverage the substantial subject matter expertise that USCIS has already developed, we recommend consolidating adjudication of all parole in place and deferred action requests from stateless noncitizens within a single unit at USCIS…We urge ICE to consider statelessness as a mitigating factor in favor of declining enforcement action when making determinations regarding arrests, detainers, removal proceedings, and the execution of removal orders.”

In addition to Durbin, Cardin, Padilla, Raskin, and Connolly, the bicameral letter to Secretary Mayorkas was signed by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), and U.S. Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Delia Ramirez (D-IL-3), Joaquin Castro (D-TX-20), David Trone (D-MD-6), Barbara Lee (D-CA-12), Andre Carson (D-IN-7), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY-16), Jim McGovern (D-MA-2), and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-7). 

The full letter follows and can be found here.

June 20, 2024

Dear Secretary Mayorkas:

As the sponsors of bicameral legislation to protect stateless individuals and their families in the United States, we deeply appreciate the actions that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken to address statelessness, including enhancing protections for stateless individuals in the United States, beginning with your December 2021 Commitment to Enhance Protections for Stateless Individuals in the United States (“DHS commitment”). As that commitment recognized, statelessness is a global problem that requires a comprehensive, tailored response. 

We also deeply appreciate the actions that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has taken so far to address statelessness, including building a process for making stateless determinations, and working to reduce barriers to legally available immigration relief and benefits faced by stateless persons. We urge you to consider the following recommendations to further enhance protections for stateless individuals and ensure consistency and coordination between DHS components with respect to such individuals. 

USCIS updated its policies to consider an individual’s potential statelessness as a factor in discretionary determinations, including requests for parole in place and deferred action. USCIS has also established a specialized unit to conduct advisory assessments of statelessness for immigration adjudicators on a potentially stateless noncitizen’s application for immigration benefits. To ensure consistency and to leverage the substantial subject matter expertise that USCIS has already developed, we recommend consolidating adjudication of all parole in place and deferred action requests from stateless noncitizens within a single unit at USCIS, regardless of whether such noncitizens have a final order of removal or are in immigration court proceedings and would generally fall under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jurisdiction. This approach would ensure consistency in the Department’s approach to statelessness issues. We also urge USCIS to consider granting parole-in-place and deferred action requests based on statelessness for a period of three years, rather than one year, and permitting concurrent filing of employment authorization applications.

Stateless noncitizens are disproportionately likely to experience lengthy periods of immigration detention in the United States because no country is obligated to accept the removal of a stateless person. We urge ICE to consider statelessness as a mitigating factor in favor of declining enforcement action when making determinations regarding arrests, detainers, removal proceedings, and the execution of removal orders. To accomplish this goal, we recommend that ICE develop guidance to better identify stateless noncitizens when ICE first encounters them, including by permitting ICE attorneys and officers to utilize the expertise of the specialized USCIS unit and request an advisory report on an individual’s potential statelessness when faced with cases that present indicators of statelessness in removal proceedings or in detention. This would allow ICE to be fully informed with respect to an individual’s statelessness when deciding whether to exercise discretion with respect to enforcement actions. 

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

Sincerely,

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