The Peripatetic.

Sample Travel Document for the Stateless

“haha… i love when americans have issues with visas … ” wrote a West African friend when I told him I could not renew my visa and had to leave China, “just because i go through special registration and crap and never know if i can come back. and i’m [secretly] jealous of the facility one has as an american.”

True, it’s easier for us than most, but then there is another realm of visas and passports and labyrinthine bureaucratic proceedings that not even my West African friend trying to get the best U.S. education has had to face: statelessness.  It was not until recently that I realized that two of my friends do not have passports, and in conversations with one of those stateless friends overseas, these few, stunning facts emerged:

1. You can be stateless. That is, you cannot claim to be a national of any state under its laws. You do not have a passport, and you cannot easily get one, either.
2. Continue reading ‘The Top 5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Stateless’