Law 360: Federal Law Should Recognize And Protect Stateless People
by Samantha Sitterley, United Stateless Staff Attorney and Charles W. Johnson IV, partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Earlier this year, more than 300 people became stateless when the regime of José Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua stripped political opponents of their citizenship. This left these individuals without a homeland, and without any government protections.[1]
The U.S. responded with condemnation and sanctions but, ironically, U.S. law currently offers no specific remedy to fix the problem of statelessness, which affects over 200,000 people living in this country.[2]