Protection and Reduction of Statelessness in U.S.

Article 13 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

American Immigration Reform May Finally Help ‘Stateless’ People

There are roughly 4,000 ‘citizens of nowhere’ in the United States today. They are from Kuwait, Burma, the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and many other places. Legally speaking, however, they don’t belong anywhere. No country claims them as citizens. Some were rendered stateless after their nations disintegrated; others were stripped of their rights because of ethnic, racial, gender, or religious discrimination in their home countries.

NATIVISM, THE CITIZENSHIP UNION, AND BARRIERS TO MOVEMENT

The day is rapidly approaching when the epithet “nativist” will carry as much power as “racist.” Not only is nativism — the practice of favoring the established inhabitants of a country over recent immigrants — hateful and based on a fallacy; its destructive consequences are becoming more apparent by the day.

Nativism, and its manifestation in debates over American citizenship, is a form of discrimination deeply embedded in common parlance and the minds of many people. That it is widely accepted, however, does not mean that it is logically coherent or moral.

On the contrary, as a practice of excluding outsiders, nativism amounts to little more than a nefarious type of union membership. It grants legal monopoly privileges under the misused banner of patriotism. The union leaders (anti-immigrant pundits and politicians) pretend to defend those who carry official American citizenship as though they were inherently more important than the “aliens,” the nonunion members.

Consider these two statements:

“This is without question a terrorism on a community … and boy it is time the community itself spoke up and said ‘get the Hell out of here, we don’t want you.’… We’re going to mobilize our union, and scabs are not coming through.” — Bob Chernecki, Canadian Auto Workers Union

“The invasion of illegal aliens … places the very life of our nation in jeopardy.… These people are a clear and present danger to all of us; so we need everyone to roll up his/her sleeves and get to work to stop this flood of problems.” — Kevin Collins, Western Center for Journalism

Regardless of the particular choice of words, the sentiment is the same. The only clear difference is that Chernecki (the union boss) fears people are supposedly stealing the jobs of his union members, while Collins (the anti-immigrant pundit) fears for the jobs of American citizens, as he explains in the rest of his article. Both are misguided, and in the end, we all suffer from their unfounded fears.

Given a respect for freedom of contract and association, people are welcome to form or join any voluntary union. Similarly, in the absence of special union legislation, employers may choose to hire or not hire union employees. So violence against the people Chernecki calls “scabs” — people who compete honestly with their labor for employment but do not possess union membership, is merely naked aggression.

What is so different about attacks against noncitizens, carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

The fallacy

At first glance, the underlying distinction may seem simple: some people were born within the borders and others were not. Why someone is more or less important based on where his mother gave birth is problematic and discriminatory enough, but the arbitrariness of the classification gets worse.

Consider that the borders of the United States have changed vastly over the years. As Alamo historian,Richard Winders, explains, “One of the concepts we have as modern people is that borders are stagnant, that they don’t move. But throughout history, what we can see is that borders do move.… You have people who, because of a shift in border, change nationalities.”

Further, some parts of the United States are still not actually states, and the leaders there never voluntarily joined the union. That includes American Samoa, the occupants of which find themselves treated as noncitizen “nationals,” subject to different legal treatment than citizens.

The writers and enforcers of such laws also ignore geography when it suits them. For example, if you’re born to military parents outside of the current borders, as John McCain was in the Panama Canal Zone, no problem. On the other hand, a majority of nations withhold citizenship if the mother does not have government approval to be present in the region, and staunch American nativists want to eliminate birthright citizenship in the United States as well.

For those born without American citizenship, the legal process for becoming a citizen — the immigration, or, should we say, union-membership application — is incredibly time-consuming, expensive, andarbitrary. Even worse, it’s basically closed to a majority of people, despite the U.S. government’s public-relations strategy of holding a literal lottery for immigration, the “Diversity Visa,”

In fact, the legal process is just another protectionist barrier to entry. Like the myriad of occupational licensure laws that are proliferating across the United States, it is a counterproductive attempt to keep out people who are supposedly competitive threats.

The destructive consequences

Take the case of Mikhail Sebastian. He was originally from the Soviet Union, but his former nation no longer exists, and Azerbaijan, where he was born, will not grant him citizenship. He is one of an estimated 12 million people with no legal tie to any nation — an “alien” everywhere he goes. Until recently he was stuck in American Samoa for more than a year, with no legal capacity to leave or provide for himself.

Sebastian is actually relatively fortunate. Immigration controls incentivize human trafficking, and many illegal immigrants die as they attempt to enter the United States. Government officials in the Kleberg and Brooks Counties of Texas claim that “so many undocumented immigrants are dying in the area that they are running out of space to bury them.”

All of the purported justifications for barriers to noncitizens — that they are criminals, that they increase citizen unemployment (PDF), that they use up welfare funds (PDF) — fall flat under any scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the destructive consequences of nativism and of enforcing the citizenship union, including a record 400,000 deportations in 2012, are simply enormous. The National Bureau for Economic Researchhas estimated that net gains from open borders would be “about the same as the gains from a growth miracle that more than doubles the income level in less-developed countries.” Immigration is an effective yet forgone way to help people from poorer nations, and it wouldn’t require any redistributive taxation; imagine that.

Perhaps without realizing, enforcement proponents are also facilitating the rise of an expensive police-state apparatus, and not just at the border. The reality is that one can only enforce strict movement controls and legal inequalities with police-state tactics such as inland checkpoints, encroachingsurveillance, a militarized border, and the imposition of law-enforcement duties on private individuals.

Each deportation costs at least $12,500, and the Department of Homeland Security, which did not exist just ten years ago, now employs 240,000 people and costs an annual $59 billion (PDF)!

A way out

Whether lawmakers like it or not, people are going to engage in civil disobedience and defy these laws, as millions already do in the United States. The lawmakers can, if they so choose, continue to waste money and ruin people’s lives fighting against this. An understanding of nativism and its fallacies, however, leads us to realize that immigration is not a problem but an opportunity — an opportunity to open our minds to genuine legal equality and the value of freedom of movement.

Stranded in American Samoa. Radio interview about statelessness

Akin to the Tom Hanks movie “The Terminal,” Mikhail Sebastian is a man with no nationality who was stuck down in American Samoa for more than a year. He reveals the painful reality of laws that discriminate based on someone’s nationality, as explained in my commentary on the matter, “Nativism, the Citizenship Union, and Barriers to Movement.”

Sebastian’s presence also helps to clarify what “stateless” means for the Stateless Man. It does not mean throwing one’s passport into the river or renouncing citizenship in such a way that would grossly impede one’s options. On the contrary, it means the renunciation of confining allegiances, being an independently-minded person towards rather than against greater freedom. It also means being pragmatic, and Sebastian can tell you how important your travel documents are in that regard.

Trip to Washington, DC.

Mikhail Sebastian, the stateless man who finally left the territory more than a week ago, after being stranded in American Samoa for 14 months, arrived in Washington D.C. this week, after being invited, while his lawyer is working on his case to remain permanently in the U.S. In an email yesterday from D.C. to the news media, including Samoa News, Sebastian said that while in the nation’s capital, he also had a chance to give a speech to the Refugees International meeting about the issue of statelessness in the U.S. He also met with the UN Refugee Commission (UNHCR) team who “worked hard to get me back home, and we filmed additional footage for the documentary that was already produced.” (The UNHCR team was in the territory last year to film the documentary, which has already been aired in the U.S.) Sebastian said he also visited Congressman Faleomavaega Eni’s office and met with one of his senior staffers, Tavita Richmond. The pair discussed “statelessness issue and some changes needed for your territory,” said Sebastian. “Congressman Faleomavaega Eni is committed to work with other members of Congress to add statelessness issues to our new comprehensive [federal] immigration reform,” he said. Earlier this month, Faleomavaega wrote to local leaders seeking suggestions and recommendations on four pieces of legislation that he plans to introduce in the U.S. House for inclusion into the broader federal immigration reform bill that Congress will consider in months ahead. One of his proposals is to address what is called a dilemma faced by ‘stateless’ individuals, who are not citizens of any country, such as Sebastian’s case.

Mikhail Sebastian, the stateless man who finally left the territory more than a week ago, after being stranded in American Samoa for 14 months, arrived in Washington D.C. this week, after being invited, while his lawyer is working on his case to remain permanently in the U.S.
 
In an email yesterday from D.C. to the news media, including Samoa News, Sebastian said that while in the nation’s capital, he also had a chance to give a speech to the Refugees International meeting about the issue of statelessness in the U.S.
 
He also met with the UN Refugee Commission (UNHCR) team who “worked hard to get me back home, and we filmed additional footage for the documentary that was already produced.” (The UNHCR team was in the territory last year to film the documentary, which has already been aired in the U.S.)
 
Sebastian said he also visited Congressman Faleomavaega Eni’s office and met with one of his senior staffers, Tavita Richmond. The pair discussed “statelessness issue and some changes needed for your territory,” said Sebastian.
 
“Congressman Faleomavaega Eni is committed to work with other members of Congress to add statelessness issues to our new comprehensive [federal] immigration reform,” he said.
 
Earlier this month, Faleomavaega wrote to local leaders seeking suggestions and recommendations on four pieces of legislation that he plans to introduce in the U.S. House for inclusion into the broader federal immigration reform bill that Congress will consider in months ahead.
 
One of his proposals is to address what is called a dilemma faced by ‘stateless’ individuals, who are not citizens of any country, such as Sebastian’s case.

Email to students of Hope College, MI

There are no enough words how thankful and grateful I am for all your efforts and participation along with advocacy in regards to statelessness issue in the United States and particularly your great job in spreading news about my plight as stateless person in order to bring me back home to LA. You conquered my heart along with students from Washington College of Law who devoted themselves to fight for justice and human rights protection of one of the most vulnerable population on our planet, stateless persons.
My journey and my story gave me an opportunity to shed the light to the plights of thousands of stateless persons living in the United States in limbo without possibility to obtain legal status and travel document. Together we can break the wall of bureaucracy. Only united we can achieve positive results. There is nothing permanent in this life but changes and it is time to make those changes happen in our broken immigration system. It is time to push our Congress to add statelessness in our new comprehensive immigration reform. Not “later”, not “maybe” but now. Stateless persons in the United States have been neglected for many years, we never talked about them, they were thrown away from the system, they became unwanted, unrecognized, marginalized citizens of nowhere in the country of democracy, in the country that is the global leader for human rights protection. It is time to show what we as Americans are about in the field of human rights protection of stateless persons. Statelessness should be eliminated. The word “stateless” should be removed from our vocabulary as every person born on this planet should have legal link between himself/herself and the country and government he/she belongs to.
I am back home but I am stateless. This is not over, not for me not for other stateless persons. We have to fight to have our rights recognized as defined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and I need you to be with me on the board in this quest. April 8th is the day when Congress starts preliminary debate about comprehensive immigration reform. Please write to your Congressman and Senator and asked them to included statelessness in our immigration reform, either to establish Statelessness Adjustment Act or convince our Government to become signatory member to UN 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and UN 1961 Convention Related to the Reduction of Statelessness.
I believe in you and I know we can move mountains together. It is time to change our system and with your bright mind everything is possible. Nothing is impossible, we just have to strongly believe in our goals and achieve desired target.

(Source: statelessinsamoa.wordpress.com)

Stateless man finally arrived back home to Los Angeles

Dear all:

I love you very very much from the bottom of my heart. The departure from Pago Pago went smoothly. Hawaiian Airlines exchanged my expired ticket without problem. Upon arrival to Honolulu the immigration process went smoothly. First the Japanese guy looked at my parole paper and asked for passport. I presented him my World Passport and he got some issues. He called supervisor, who was very nice and polite lady and knew about me and was waiting for my arrival. She had in her hands letter from USCIS and was looking for me. She took me to her office and asked another immigration officer to process my papers quickly since I had 2 hours left to catch my flight to LA. They took my photo and finger prints. Since I had only World Passport they agreed to attach stamped I-94 arrival/departure card to my passport with stamped indicated “Paroled” until March 11, 2014. They had to take my parole paper from USCIS from me since it was one way entry into the US.
When I claimed my luggage and went to thru TSA to connect to my flight, TSA created a fuss because of my World Passport. They did not allow me to get to LA flight since World Passport was not acceptable. I had only 1 hour left to catch my flight. I tried to hurry them up. I showed them my expired Employment Card and ID but they refused to accept it. TSA lady started making numerous phone calls. I was in rush and tried to hurry her up to call DHS. I showed her I-94 form attached to my passport with immigration stamp on it and letter from USCIS stating that I was paroled but she did not want to cooperate. I lost my patience. I asked her to return my documents to me since I decided to take matter on my own hands. She was still on the phone with someone and I left. I went back to immigration and the same lady who helped me from the beginning, showed her courtesy and escorted me thru TSA and asked TSA supervisor to allow me to pass with World Passport. And at the end she followed with me to gate 27 for LA departure and we got there 10 minutes before boarding was over and I made it to LA flight. It was really nice of Honolulu DHS.
I finally arrived to LA feeling the breeze of chilly weather. It felt like I was not away for 15 month but only 4 days
I will go for job hunting as I need to get some job as quickly as I can so I’ll be able to find my own apartment to stay at.
I want to thank you all for all your help and support. It would not happened without you. I love you all deeply and will be in touch with you as usual. Next step is to become permanent resident and citizen, and we should not forget other stateless people as well.
Cordially,
Mikhail

Year long journey is over. But battle still continues.

I do not know where to start honestly. I am overwhelmed by joy and happiness and I praise Lord Jesus Christ for not forsaking me, for giving me enough strength and courage even at the time of my disbelief and hopelessness to overcome this painful ordeal I was set to endure. Almost year and two month ago without having any idea whatsoever what my holiday trip was about to store for me, I boarded the flight bounded to American Samoa, the US territory in South Pacific as an ardent traveler. Only on my way back, the horrid day of January 02, 2012, the news that shocked me deeply turned my trip into nightmarish disaster when I was informed that I was not allowed to return back to the mainland. I trembled, I was scared with no clue what to do and where to run to, I was surrounded by the ocean and the sky on the isolated tiny island alone. But God works in mysterious way and there is always good that comes from bad, grief turns into happiness. 
I struggled, I’ve been terrified, I got constantly depressed. I had a hard time dealing with high tropical humidity in the dominant culture of an island where I could not fit in. On many occasions I questioned myself why me, why I had to go through darkness without dim of the light searching for exit with all doors shut on my face. I was the one to be blamed by some people who got to know my case and used any words to punish me for something I believed I did not deserve. I have nothing against those folks, I am not angry at them for the reason of not knowing what is to be stateless and those who take their citizenship for granted. I tried to occupy my mind by writing about the issue of statelessness and be the voice for all those unfortunate citizens of nowhere who got stuck in limbo in the country of freedom and democracy. I did not want anyone to experience the prolonged turbulence of uncertainty. I just knew I had to battle every single storm thrown into my face, terrified of lightning that struck me. 
Most of the time I was impatient, I was angry, I was impulsive, I wanted something to be done quickly for it never crossed my mind that  my four day trip would become my year long imprisonment, my exile and my confinement I had a hard time to accept. But I have learned not to sit and relax and wait for miracle to happen. I had to do something to put an end to the suffering I drowned into. With the digital era we are facing now I used the internet to send my emotional messages across the globe, from American Samoa to US to Europe and etc. I strongly believed that nobody wanted to hear me because I was a singular voice not a plural mass movement. Someone had to hear me I told myself, someone should understand the plight of stateless persons for it was human rights issue but not some type of entertainment people could watch and forget. It is more than that. It is a life of a human being, the life we all consider precious because we all live only once.
I kept posting on CNN Ireport hoping someone would respond back to me. I kept sending messages through my twitter account. And surely enough God echoed back and long waiting message arrived from Mr. Moises Mendoza, a freelance journalist who heard my cry and offered his assistance to write about  a stateless person who got stuck in American Samoa. From day one I met him until now we are in touch and we became a good friends. Article was published in Global Post followed by the interview from NPR, request from Salon.com about writing a brief story of myself, another interview from Mariana Variety (newspaper from Northern Mariana Island), conversation from Radio New Zealand, and finally my long awaited response from CNN and who could be else but my favorite anchor I adore so much thanks to her sharp wit and straight to the point news coverage, lovely Christiane Amanpour,  and, of course, multiple articles from local newspaper Samoa News and interview with local radio station. I have built a team of supporters who deeply in their heart felt the madness I summoned myself into. 
At that point I was so exhausted by writing and talking that I still felt I was just a single point of interest for media people to write something to make news because that was unprecedented case ever happened to stateless person in the United States let alone American Samoa. When the UNHCR office in Washington approached me with the possibility of filming a documentary about my case I became hesitant and was about to decline filming thinking of myself like monkey in the zoo when people come to watch live performances for their amusement. I thought about it and finally agreed to meet a UNHCR team who flew down here to see me, and I did not regret it. I had the most wonderful time of my months of capitivity to see people who cared about the issue, who brought me smile and happy moments in my life within my confinement. We became friends and I love them dearly. You guys turned the world around, Jennifer Utz and Patrick Molitoris. You gave me back the hope I lost.
When people used to ask me what was my nationality and what citizenship I held including some immigration officers in Los Angeles whom I had pleasure to report every three month, without any delay my answer was that I was citizen of the United Nations. I remember once telling this to one immigration officer in LA who got confused and said to me that there was no such citizenship as United Nations, I replied that there was because I was the one. I always wished that one day the whole planet of earth will be ruled by one government similar to the EU but in this case it will be United Nations with UN Parliament and UN Government and all countries would become part of the Union of the UN and similar to the EU that introduced EU passport for all members of the Union our world one day will be in possession of one passport, citizen of the United Nations following the country it was issued in. People dream and sometimes dreams turn into reality, maybe not now, not this time, not in this century but it will bear fruit, I am very confident about that.
As my final days of exile approach the end, I’d like to thank USCIS and the officers who were involved in adjudicating my case to make the right thing possible. I want personally thank Lindsay Jenkins, Leslie Velez, Charity Tooze and Jennifer Riddle from UNHCR for being so involved in my case to see it to fruition. My wonderful team of lawyers, Tammy Lin from Jewish Family Service and David Baluarte from American University - Washington College of Law who took my case pro-bono and used everything in their power to have justice to stateless person prevailed. My sincere appreciation and gratefulness to Mr. Fred Johnson, professor of History from Hope College, MI and his amazing students who fought with me and used social media to bring attention to the plight of stateless persons, for reaching out to me and offering their great help, I am thankful to them. I am very thankful and utterly grateful to Valerie Lowson who was the first person took over my case and tiresley day and night worked on my case, to have the voice of stateless person be heard. She was my angel sent from above, she was the most outstanding and professional lawyer I ever met, who provided the argument with USG that stateless person could not deport himself from the US to the US territory. Her positive thinking, her faith and believe encouraged me to not give up and fight. I owe her so much as without Valerie Lowson I really think the situation could have turned to worth. Congressman Eni Faleomavaega and Tavita Richmond, your are absolutely wonderful people, thanks for being with me and moving my case forward. And I could not end this without mentioning Kathy and Colten, attorney students from Washington College of Law for their participation in statelessness project. To all my friends in Houston, Los Angeles, Austria, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany thank you for your help, your moral and financial support, your daily communications with me that kept me connected and not feeling being abandoned. I owe you a lot and I love you from the depth of my heart. American Samoa Government thanks for screwing up my vacation with your travel permission without properly checking my documents but to make it a happy ending I want to thank you, American Samoa for your hospitality, for your assistance and for your support, for everything you have done not to forget me. Susana and Tupu Tao, my “adopted” family, I kneel down to you to pay my homage for putting up with me for so long, for doing everything it was in your power to make me feel at home even though I could not accept that. Thanks for taking me to hospital whenever I needed, thanks for your financial assistance, I never forget, thanks for having me even though I was pain the ass sometimes. You did more than I expected and more than your government could provide. You dealt with me in your own hardship. I became burden to your family and I had difficult time to find peace within myself. But good people do exist and they listen to your S.O.S. And that what we, Christian people are about, those who believe in Almighty and find his tender love. 
The journey of “Napoleon Bonapart” or “Christopher Columbus” as I was called, in American Samoa is over but it is not over in the realm of statelessness issue. I’ll do anything in my power to fight statelessness and have this issue to be resolved and statelessness be abolished and human rights restored to those marginalized population of our country that is less fortunate than others. We are all equal before God and we have liberty and freedom gifted to us upon our birth. We all have rights as defined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it is my call to make sure that United States will implement all necessary measures to protect and reduce statelessness in this country and finally to join the rest nations to accede to UN 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and UN 1961 Convention Related to the Reduction of Statelessness.
God, give me enough strength, good health and more power to continue this journey. I believe in you and I surround myself to you completely. Amen.