- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
A 2-year-old American girl has been left stateless after the Trump administration deported her alongside her family.
Emanuelly Borges Santos, known to her family as Manu, was born in a Florida hospital in 2022. She has an American passport and a Social Security card. Nevertheless, Manu and her parents, who are both undocumented, were packed onto a plane with 94 others and shipped to Brazil in February, according to a report from The Washington Post.
When they arrived, Brazilian officials were shocked to find the American toddler among the deportees.
“We’d never seen another case like this,” federal police officer Alexsandra Oliveira Medeiros Reis told the Post.
That’s not what “stateless” means.
OK. So what’s the word for “unable to return to your country of citizenship due to circumstances beyond your control and also unable to stay in the country you’re presently in due to only having a tourist visa”?
This is de facto statelessness
She’s still a de jure US citizen
That is, if a democratic (hopefully a progressive) president who respects the rule of law take power, they can come back.
If this were de jure revocation of citizenship, then even a democractic president can’t bring you back
Had her statehood wrongly, cruelly, illegally, willfully, and thoroughly ripped from her without due process.
But stateless… no.
Are you under the impression that statelessness would ever be something that was done rightfully, kindly, legally, etc?
This is what statelessness looks like. It is wrong, cruel, and illegal.
“Statelessness” is a state of being.
It is something that can be chosen. When chosen, yep, it’s “rightfully, kindly, legally, etc.” and that term applies.
When done to you, it is “wrong, cruel, and illegal” and some other term is more applicable. “Statelessness” is much too passive. 🤷♂️
Statelessness is also something that is inflicted on people. The UN talks about this stuff all the time.
How would you even choose it? I guess you could renounce all citizenship and then go live in a seastead or a colony on Mars, but it’s usually something that is done to people.
She’s been made stateless, which is by definition illegal. There’s international law against doing exactly this (not that the US cares right now).