#Statelessness

[frothlad]

One reason not to interfere with birthright citizenship is the possibility of leaving someone stateless. Statelessness was a huge problem historically, particularly with the great realignments of national borders post-WWI and post-WWII and the populations displaced by war and internal strife, to the extent that the UN (primarily through the High Council on Refugees), put a great deal of pressure on its constituent countries to figure out rules so that persons could be reasonably relied on to have at least one state that they could claim citizenship in.

The rules got a lot better! But they're not ironclad. It's still fairly easy for someone to not be able to claim either parent's citizenship (particularly if born overseas). The US used to have some seriously bad (and sexist) rules along those lines, e.g. an American citizen mother's child born overseas of a non-American father could claim citizenship, but an American citizen father's child born overseas of a non-American mother had to jump through hoops before age 18 or lose all claims to citizenship.

For kids born in the US, that doesn't matter, because we have ironclad birthright citizenship. Statelessness is not a problem we have at home. But if we drop birthright citizenship, we will. Or rather, there will be a new class of Americans we treat like shit and pretend we don't notice that it's happening.

I am not making this up. Doublecheck my work. If proving me wrong is what gets you to crack a history book, it's worth it.

I agree with the UN: Everybody should belong somewhere. I don't want to be the kind of country that puts the lie to that. I want to be the kind of country I learned about from Schoolhouse Rock.

[pearwaldorf]

Hey so this is happening and it's bad. Palestine is not recognized as a state by much of the world, so this risks making these children stateless.

Belgium saying it has nothing to do with the current round of conflict doesn't mean a damn thing. It's not like Israel hasn't been bombing the shit out of Gaza before August. What sets off alarm bells for me is this:

[The spokesperson] said that the Belgian authorities remain concerned about potential "abuses" of the country's asylum system. "The Foreigners' Office regularly notes that Palestinians in the European Union go to Belgium to have children there in order to acquire Belgian citizenship and, consequently, to benefit from family reunification," he said. "[We will] fight against practices where people who do not have the right to do so try to possess Belgian nationality," he added.

I trust this anti-immigrant rhetoric is familiar to Americans and others. Oh no, they get to have kids outside of a war zone, get citizenship in the EU, and keep their families together. What an awful thing to help enable.

By definition, people who apply for asylum are in a bad spot. Certainly it is one way people will try to game the system, but people will attempt to exploit any advantage they think they have, especially if it gets them out of very real danger.

I don't know anything about how asylum in the EU/Belgium works or if the Foreigners' Office can even do this, but it is deeply concerning they think they might have the authority to do something that drastic. Denaturalization of groups (usually ethnic minorities) is closely associated with ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Please be aware of this sort of rhetoric around citizenship and nationality, and how it is used to punish already vulnerable people. Push back against it, because it is absolutely wrong and extremely frightening as a barometer of what people think is acceptable.

[theskepticalleftist]

I think more people should read this

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works

[executive-orders]

Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship (EO 14160)

Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-02007

Insights on Executive Order 14160:

Purpose and Policy:

Purpose: This executive order aims to redefine the criteria for automatic birthright citizenship in the United States. It seeks to clarify the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by specifying conditions under which a person born in the U.S. would not automatically be considered a U.S. citizen at birth.

Policy: The order establishes that children born to mothers who are either unlawfully present or temporarily legally present in the U.S., without a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident father, will not be automatically granted U.S. citizenship. This policy takes effect 30 days after the issuance of the order.

Legal and Constitutional Considerations:

Constitutional Interpretation: The order invokes historical context, particularly critiquing the Dred Scott decision, while interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude certain groups from automatic citizenship. This interpretation might be contentious, as it narrows the previously broad understanding of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Legislation vs. Executive Order: The order references existing law (8 U.S.C. 1401) but attempts to modify its application through executive action, which could lead to legal challenges regarding the extent of presidential authority to alter citizenship laws without Congressional action.

Implementation and Enforcement:

Departmental Actions: Agencies like the Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Social Security Administration are tasked with aligning their practices with this new policy. This includes updating regulatory guidance, which must be done within 30 days.

Public Guidance: The requirement for public guidance suggests an intent to maintain transparency and inform the public of changes in citizenship policy, though the specifics of how these policies will be enforced day-to-day remain subject to further clarification.

Potential Impact:

Immediate Effects: Children born to parents under the specified conditions post-order will not automatically receive U.S. citizenship, potentially affecting immigration, education, and welfare policies.

Long-term Implications: This could lead to an increase in statelessness if other countries also do not recognize the citizenship of these children. It might also encourage more stringent immigration checks for pregnant women.

Legal Challenges: Given the controversial nature of altering citizenship laws through executive order, there might be significant legal pushback, possibly leading to court cases challenging the order's constitutionality.

Political and Social Considerations:

Public Reaction: This order might polarize public opinion, with debates centering on issues of immigration, national identity, and rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

International Relations: How other nations react to this policy could affect diplomatic relations, especially regarding visa policies and international agreements on citizenship.

Overall, this executive order represents a significant shift in U.S. citizenship policy, potentially altering the landscape of immigration law, constitutional interpretation, and the rights of individuals born in the U.S. under specific circumstances. The execution and long-term effects of this order would depend heavily on legal interpretations and political will.

Analysis in Relation to U.S. Law

Constitutional Basis and Historical Context:

Fourteenth Amendment: The order references the Fourteenth Amendment which guarantees citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Historically, interpretations have generally included a broad birthright citizenship, but with notable exceptions like children of diplomats or Native Americans (prior to certain legislative acts).

Dred Scott v. Sandford: The order mentions this case to highlight the historical exclusion of certain groups from citizenship based on race, which was later rectified by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Legal Interpretation and Implications:

Jurisdiction Clause: The order's interpretation of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" seems to narrow the scope beyond what current legal interpretations under the Fourteenth Amendment typically uphold. Traditionally, this clause has been interpreted to exclude only those with no allegiance to the U.S., like foreign diplomats' children. The order extends this to include children born to mothers who are unlawfully present or temporarily in the U.S., which is a significant departure from established judicial interpretations.

Legal Challenge: This reinterpretation could face significant legal challenges. The Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) affirmed that children born to legal and illegal immigrants in the U.S. are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. This order might be seen as conflicting with that precedent unless a new legal or constitutional interpretation is upheld by the courts.

Legislation and Administrative Actions:

8 U.S.C. 1401: The order aligns with this statute in recognizing citizenship but adds conditions not specified in the statute, potentially overstepping executive authority without corresponding legislative action.

Policy Implementation: The order mandates policy changes across various government departments. However, its enforcement might be legally contested as an overreach of executive power if not supported by new legislation or a judicial reinterpretation of the Constitution.

Potential for Litigation:

Equal Protection Clause: This order could be challenged under the Equal Protection Clause, arguing that it discriminates against children based on their parents' legal status or visa conditions at the time of birth.

Due Process: There might be due process concerns regarding the retroactive nature of denying citizenship to those born after the 30-day implementation period without legislative support.

Political and Social Implications:

Public Reaction and Policy Debate: This order could reignite debates over immigration, citizenship, and legal rights, potentially polarizing public opinion further.

Impact on Immigration Policy: It might influence future immigration policy discussions, particularly around birthright citizenship, visa policies, and the rights of immigrants.

Conclusion:

Constitutional and Legal Viability: The executive order's approach to redefine the scope of birthright citizenship directly challenges established legal norms. Its enforceability would hinge on judicial review, potentially at the Supreme Court level.

Immediate Actions: Agencies will need to revise policies, but any immediate action might be stayed by court orders if lawsuits are filed contesting the order's legality.

Overall Impact: The order represents a significant shift in policy, likely to provoke legal battles, public discourse, and potentially legislative responses. Its ultimate fate would be determined by how courts interpret the Constitution in light of this new directive.

Explanation of the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"

The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is a legal term originating from the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, specifically from Section 1, which states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Here's a breakdown of its meaning:

Jurisdiction:

In legal terms, jurisdiction refers to the authority granted to a legal body (like a court or government) to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility.

Subject to the jurisdiction thereof:

This clause means that the individual must be fully and completely under the laws of the United States. The key interpretations include:

Exclusion of Diplomats and Foreign Troops: For instance, children born to foreign diplomats or members of foreign military units stationed in the U.S. are not considered "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. because their parents have diplomatic immunity or are subject to the laws of their own country under international agreements. This means they (and by extension, their children) are not fully subject to U.S. legal authority.

Historical Context and Native Americans: At the time the amendment was passed, Native American tribes were considered separate nations under federal law, not fully under U.S. jurisdiction. This interpretation began to change with subsequent laws and court decisions, notably with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted citizenship to Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

Debates on Birthright Citizenship:

This phrase has been central to debates over "birthright citizenship" — the right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. Some argue that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" should mean not just being physically present but also owing allegiance solely to the U.S., potentially excluding children of undocumented immigrants. However, the predominant legal interpretation, backed by judicial decisions like United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), has been that anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their parents' status, is a citizen if they are not covered by exceptions like diplomatic immunity.

In summary, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is meant to exclude those who are not completely under U.S. law due to their diplomatic status or historical exceptions like Native Americans before specific legal changes. It establishes criteria for who qualifies for U.S. citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, focusing on legal allegiance and jurisdiction rather than merely physical presence.

[no-passaran]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[reasonsforhope]

"In a landmark move towards ending statelessness, Thailand’s cabinet has approved an accelerated pathway to permanent residency and nationality for nearly half a million stateless people, marking one of the region’s most significant citizenship initiatives. 

The decision announced on Friday [November 1, 2024] will benefit 335,000 longtime residents and members of officially recognized minority ethnic groups, along with approximately 142,000 of their children born in Thailand.

“This is a historic development,” said Ms. Hai Kyung Jun, UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Bureau Director for Asia and the Pacific. The measure is expected to dramatically reduce statelessness, addressing the situation of the majority of nearly 600,000 people currently registered as stateless in the country.

Thailand’s commitment to eradicating statelessness has positioned the Government as a leader in addressing this humanitarian challenge, the agency said.

The country recently pledged at the Global Refugee Forum 2023 to resolve statelessness and was among the founding members of the Global Alliance to End Stateless, an initiative launched by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, in Geneva last month...

UNHCR has expressed its commitment to continue working closely with the Royal Thai Government on the implementation of this groundbreaking decision and to ending statelessness overall."

-via United Nations News, November 1, 2024

[useless-catalanfacts]

Sweden saying they'll vote against allowing the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the European Union Parliament because "there's lots of minority languages and we can't allow them all" is so funny because CATALAN HAS MORE SPEAKERS THAN SWEDISH

Catalan is the 13th most spoken language in the EU. It has more than 10 million speakers, which means it has more speakers than other languages that are already official EU languages like Maltese (530,000), Estonian (1.2 million), Latvian (1.5 million), Irish (1.6 million), Slovene (2.5 million), Lithuanian (3 million), Slovak (5 million), Finnish (5.8 million), Danish (6 million), Swedish (10 million), and Bulgarian (10 million).

Neither Galician (3 million) nor Basque (750,000) would still be the least spoken languages to be allowed in the EU representative bodies.

But even if any of them did, so what? Why do speakers of smaller languages deserve less rights than those of bigger languages? How are we supposed to feel represented by the EU Parliament when our representatives aren't even allowed to speak our language, but the dominant groups can speak theirs?

It all comes down to the hatred of language/cultural diversity and the belief that it's an inconvenience, that only the languages of independent countries have any kind of value while the rest should be killed off. After all, isn't that what Sweden has been trying to do to the indigenous Sami people for centuries?

[visenyaism]

astarion baldursgate being a nepo baby corrupt magistrate before his death is a deliberate narrative choice meant to highlight that in the tradition of The Vampire being an incredibly transparent metaphor for class dynamics of feudalism (evil lord living in a palace demanding the blood of the peasantry,) the category of the Vampire Spawn exists as a clear analogue to the bourgeoisie and their role in perpetuating the power of the aristocracy. in the rest of this deranged fucking text post i will

[mapsontheweb]

How many people in the world are stateless?

Millions of people around the world are denied the basic rights and protections of citizenship. According to UNHCR, by the end of 2023, there were 4,4 million stateless and of undetermined nationality. However, this figure is likely much lower than the actual number due to difficulties in data collection and the fact that stateless persons often go unnoticed in national statistical surveys. Stateless persons who are not recognized as nationals of any country are deprived of rights and access to basic services, making them politically and economically marginalized and vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation, according to UNHCR. 

🔍 Source: United Nations High Commissioner for refugees

by theworldmaps

[sheltiechicago]

Huge Low Poly Art Sculptures And Installations By David Mesguich

David Mesguich, a street artist and globetrotter, makes large installations that leaves where everyone can see them, in the public spaces of countries like France, Belgium and Poland.

Huge installations that are designed to shake the social consciousness, as in the case of his latest project “Stateless“, a series where the protagonists are migrants who fight against the borders and the Holy Europe watching from the sideline.

[ceasarslegion]

Your tumblr inbox when you list your nationality as a country that bad things are happening in

[hussyknee]

Whenever Brits are like "tea is our national drink, our culture, our personality, our mental health" I think of our hill country blanketed in a patchwork quilt of human suffering and ongoing violent colonialism and want to smash all their tea cups. Your genocidal leaf juice is nothing to be proud of. The present day tea pluckers are the descendants of the Indians you enslaved and they still live in unthinkable poverty in the line houses you built to house them like cattle. The families whose farmlands you robbed have been starving for generations. Every sip of your leaf juice is soaked in blood and you drink it like vampires.

Tea will never belong to you. It's our legacy of grief, and your shame.

Drink your tea and shut the fuck up.

[anarchicarachnid]

I would say regarding a proper anarchist society, that this points to common misconceptions, specifically the equating of statelessness with a lack of systems or rules within society. Managerial roles, enforcement of rules, organizations and something akin to agencies, etc, would still need to exist. People can't simply have a society with no structure whatsoever. And people will still need to organize and manage things through roles that would replace what we currently use government positions for.

I don't believe in personal solutions to systemic problems. Human behavior has to be accounted for in a statistical sense, rather than just telling every individual to do better forever. The utopian aspects would be things like finding better solutions to crime than our current system of police, imprisonment, and execution. Or instead of powerful rich politicians who can vote themselves more power and money and rig the system to keep their positions, you would have systems to ensure people doing managerial work for the common good would only ever be able to fit within their boundaries, never having disproportionate power, and could easily be removed from those positions if they violate the spirit or the letter of those boundaries.

There are lots of very specific ways we could attempt to outline and structure the exact set of conditions, so I could go on and on, but really statelessness to me is just about dismantling our current broken systems and replacing them with something better. Something where power imbalances and hierarchies are as close to nonexistent as possible. And then that society must have strict enforcement and protection of those improved systems from bad actors, much like how democracy today requires protection from anti-democratic actors, even through violence if necessary.

Making a better world kind of requires that the people in it act in more thoughtful, deliberate ways. And since a massive amount of people would rather kill everyone in the world before thinking about their actions, you would need some kind of written out laws and an enforcement mechanism. So we have circled back to needing some kind of state in general. The existing states are completely inadequate to this task and in fact are dictatorships of racism and class. They deserve to fall, but I dont know how you would go from this to a stateless utopia (still an ethical requirement for humanity), without an intermediate where the attendant behavior changes can be made. This is not to say I support our legal system, im saying that until the average person can be expected to act in the interests of general humanity and peaceful cohabitation, there will probably need to be a formal enforcement of basic principles.

[no-passaran]

Are you 18-35 years old and an activist or academic from a minoritized or minority language? This might interest you!

(And even if you don't meet the criteria but are interested in participating in another way, the organizers still encourage you to write to them!)

Website link: