This report is one of the outputs of a global research and advocacy project of the Equal Rights Trust (ERT) on stateless persons in detention. It draws attention to the plight of stateless persons in detention in the USA, focussing on immigration detention in Part One, and security detention practices in Part Two of the report.

The report's findings indicate that the U.S. system, by not addressing the unique challenges posed by statelessness, has failed its international human rights obligations both in the context of immigration detention and security detention.

The security detention regime, in particular, has been increasingly under the scrutiny of the international community, after President Obama’s pledge to close down the Guantanamo Bay facility by January 2010 – a target which, he himself has admitted, cannot be met. One of the primary reasons for this failure is that many of the remaining detainees who have been cleared for release are stateless and cannot be safely returned to their countries of habitual residence.