In April, the United States sanctioned three Nicaraguan judges for their role in stripping more than 300 political dissidents of their citizenship and leaving many of them stateless.
“The United States is taking further action to hold accountable those responsible for the repressive actions of the Nicaraguan regime,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Nicaragua’s government, led by President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, had been criticized by the United Nations and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International for using the judiciary to attack political opponents.
“We will continue to use available diplomatic and economic tools to promote accountability for the abuses committed by the Ortega-Murillo regime,” Blinken added.
The strong and timely response of the Biden administration to the Nicaraguan regime’s attempt to turn statelessness into a weapon against dissent is undoubtedly commendable. But sadly, this principled stance remains in stark contrast to its continued failure to deliver on the promises it made to more than 200,000 stateless people in the US. This includes many stateless people who, like the Nicaraguan dissidents Blinken is now trying to protect, have been stripped of their citizenship for resisting oppressive regimes in their “homeland.”
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would “adopt a definition of statelessness for immigration purposes and enhance the protection of stateless persons living in the United States”. In April 2022, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas reaffirmed this commitment during an appearance on PBS NewsHour, noting that his department “would act with the urgency warranted by the vulnerabilities” and aiming “that this year, this fiscal year, where to to make”.
Stateless people are those, like the (formerly) Nicaraguan activists, whom no government considers its citizens.
Each stateless person has their own unique story of how they ended up in that situation, but geopolitical upheavals such as the breakup of the Soviet Union or crises such as the war in Ukraine are common causes. Some have become stateless because they were abroad during a regime change in their home country and the newly formed state refused to recognize them as one of its citizens. Others became stateless when the autocratic governments of their home countries stripped all members of the minority ethnic or religious community to which they belonged.
Whatever the cause, statelessness puts people in a bureaucratic limbo that denies them the chance to live a full life. Because they do not have travel documents, they are often separated from their relatives in other countries for decades. Even if they demand to be “deported”, no country will agree to take them in so they can’t leave. Some may not have identity papers, work permits or even access to health care.
In his statement on the sanctions against the Nicaraguan judges, Minister Blinken acknowledged that the Nicaraguan dissidents in question have a “fundamental right to citizenship”. Unfortunately, he has not yet moved to help 200,000 stateless people residing in his own country exercise this “basic right”.
Today, stateless people in the US still have very few rights and their future in the country remains uncertain. Stateless people in the US are demanding concrete, immediate action from the government of their adopted home. The Biden administration must honor the promises it made to stateless people more than two years ago and urgently deliver a permanent and comprehensive solution to statelessness in the country.
The US immigration law is not fit for purpose of addressing statelessness in a humane, efficient and timely manner. So if it is serious about ending statelessness in the US, the government must first build a specific legal framework to help and protect the stateless. Congress could take the first step toward building this much-needed framework by passing the Stateless Protection Act, introduced in December 2022 by Senator Ben Cardin and Representative Jamie Raskin.
I was pleased to see Minister Blinken recognize the “basic right to citizenship” and show that the US, seen by many as a beacon of freedom, is prepared to defend Nicaraguan dissidents from statelessness. But to show that Biden’s America truly cares about stamping out this grave human rights violation, he must also help those stateless people who have already made the US their home. In other words, when it comes to statelessness, the Biden administration must be coherent and keep its word.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.