You can’t go back to a country that doesn’t exist

“Go back to your country” is the most common trope I hear people throw around when they want to belittle immigrants in this country. The reality is that some of us don’t have a country to go back to. 

Immigration law in the U.S. was written on the assumption that everyone belongs somewhere. Stateless people like me expose a gap in that law that Congress has never closed. 

My family sought asylum in the U.S. when I was eight years old. By the time our claim was denied, and we were ordered to leave, the Soviet Union had dissolved, and the country listed on my birth certificate no longer existed. Ukraine did not recognize me as a citizen. There was nowhere for us to return to. We became part of the roughly 218,000 people living in the U.S. who are stateless.

Stateless people in this country live in precarious situations with little to no legal remedy. Because we lack a passport, we have no real form of identification — and that makes navigating ordinary life nearly impossible.

Many of us cannot get a driver’s license or a state ID, which means we can’t legally drive, open a bank account, sign a lease or board a domestic flight without running into obstacles. Without a Social Security number, most jobs are off the table, even if we have the degree or the skills to do them. Professional licenses — the kind teachers, nurses and contractors need — are frequently out of reach.

We cannot travel outside the country,........

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