No citizenship, fewer rights: almost 30,000 officially recognized stateless persons live in Germany. 97,000 other people have no clarified nationality. Mith Rahman is one of them.
“The German authorities are making me really sick,” says Mith Rahman, 36, who has been in Germany for 11 years. Rahman came to Germany from Bangladesh without papers in 2012. According to his own statements, he belongs to the Rohingya minority. The Muslim people have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades. They are mostly denied citizenship, so they are stateless.
Rahman’s situation and the bureaucratic difficulties have taken such a toll on him that he can no longer sleep or work properly. He lived in Lower Saxony for a while and now works as a waiter in Hamburg. Now he wants to marry his fiancée in Bangladesh. But that’s difficult without citizenship, he says. And naturalization in Germany is also difficult.
Rahman is sitting in a Hamburg café on a Sunday morning and places several documents on the table. Then he shows an e-mail from the immigration office on his cell phone. It says that the proof of identity that he submitted is not sufficient for naturalization. “I want to become German,” says Rahman. “If I have a German passport, many things will be easier. I want to have a good job, vote, bring my fiancée to Germany and get married. I’ve been here alone for a long time.”
When asked, the Office for Migration in Hamburg writes that the identity and nationality of the person concerned must be clarified in order for naturalization to take place. Since stateless people usually do not have official ID cards, a multi-level model applies here. Various documents are listed that serve as proof. If none of these can be obtained, the applicant’s statements will be evaluated. However, this could lead to a longer duration of the procedure.
Highest level of stateless people
Rahman is just one of thousands of people in Germany who do not have citizenship. Almost 30,000 were officially recognized as stateless in 2022 – a record high. Their number has doubled since 2014. The nationality of another 97,000 people has not been clarified.
The causes are manifold. Documents from the home countries are often missing, for example if the birth was not registered at all. Patriarchal laws also play a role: in some countries, women are not allowed to inherit their citizenship, or only under special circumstances. If the father does not recognize the child or is stateless himself, the child has no citizenship.
Not all stateless persons have entered Germany. Almost 5000 were born in the Federal Republic. In order for a child of foreign parents to receive German citizenship at birth, one parent must have lived in Germany for at least eight years and have a permanent residence permit.
Political conflicts also play a role. Some of the migrants have documents from countries that are not recognized, or belong to minorities that are stateless in their home country – like the Rohingya.
statelessness
Recognized stateless persons are people who have been officially classified as stateless by the German authorities. This requires a clarification of the identity of the person.
People with unclear citizenship or without information about citizenship are people whose identity, origin or statelessness could not be verified with certainty.
A child who has been stateless since birth is entitled to naturalization if it was born in Germany, has had its lawful permanent residence in Germany for five years and submits the application before it turns 21. Unless it has been sentenced to imprisonment or youth imprisonment of at least five years.
At the edge of society
“Even if they get a residence permit or protection here in Germany, people without citizenship will have many restrictions in life,” says Karim Alwasiti from the Lower Saxony Refugee Council. They risk inheriting statelessness from their children. In practice, naturalization is sometimes complicated because documents are often missing. Marriage and family reunification are not a matter of course, and the procedures can take longer. A civil service is usually excluded. They are not allowed to vote in federal elections and thus take part in political life. “These people remain on the fringes of society,” says Alwasiti.
The reasons are of a legal nature: For many procedures, such as naturalization or marriage, the identity must be clarified. For naturalization, it should also be ruled out that the person has another nationality. In the case of marriage, on the other hand, that she is not already married in another country. “Germany has some of the highest requirements for marriage,” says Bremen lawyer Albert Timmer.
Travel is also restricted. Not all states recognize identity cards for stateless persons, foreigners or refugees. And an identity card for stateless persons is not easy to get. “You have to prove where you were born, what your ancestry is, you have to try to get documents from your home country. That’s the difficulty,” says Timmer.
According to the lawyer Jan Süring, who specializes in migration, it is particularly difficult for people who say they come from a country but cannot prove this because they lack the documents. Most of them are people from “failed states like Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya”. You then have an unclear nationality.
BMI: clarification of identity important
According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the clarification of the identity of those affected serves “important security concerns of the Federal Republic of Germany”. The travel document for stateless persons is considered to be a substitute for a passport, which countries that have signed the Stateless Persons Convention must recognize as a matter of principle.
At the same time, the Ministry confirms that the proof requirements for civil procedures, such as marriages or birth certificates, can sometimes be higher. Evidence of parentage or marital status may be required. “The lack of certainty about the identity of a person is therefore of particular importance in such a procedure.”
Lawyer: Problem will worsen
According to Alwasiti, a member of the refugee council, one solution could be affidavits if documents cannot be obtained from the home countries. “If people give false information, then they make themselves punishable,” he says.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior refers to the stage model. This takes into account both the interests of the state and the interests of those affected and ensures that “those affected have a realistic chance of proving their identity and nationality”. In this context, no affidavit is required.
For lawyer Sürig, it could be necessary to create alternative procedures to verify people’s identities. Because that could “become an even bigger problem in the coming decades”, since refugees from so-called failed states will continue to come to Germany.
Rahman, on the other hand, only wishes that he could lead a normal life.