1. Lack of Legal Safeguards Against Childhood Statelessness
The citizenship law of Micronesia provides no explicit protection for foundlings or children born within the territory to stateless and/or foreign parents to access citizenship.
2. Citizenship Stripping
Naturalized citizenship can be cancelled if a person travels to a foreign country (not including the U.S. or Puerto Rico) for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. This could leave some stateless if they do not have the nationality of another country when their naturalized citizenship is cancelled.
3. Administrative Barriers
As of 2015, Micronesia’s birth registration rate was reported by the Committee on the Rights of the Child as 70%. Birth registration in Micronesia is required for school enrollment and to obtain a passport. Challenges with birth registration include differing civil registration procedures for each state and the lack of a streamlined national registration system. There is a need to centralize civil registration data. Limited transportation and communication pose significant challenges for recording and registering births, especially in remote areas. Despite a common legal approach to birth registration across the four states of Micronesia, procedural variations exist due to differences in topography and administrative procedures. For example, the island of Kosrae has a direct link between the Department of Health and Social Affairs and the court, allowing for efficient weekly manual record sharing. States with more outer islands, such as Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Yap, face more significant challenges.
4. Statelessness and Climate Change
While it remains a hypothetical debate, there are a number of articles and reports written on the risk of statelessness faced by citizens of low-lying Pacific states including Micronesia due to the impact of climate-induced sea-level rise.
