Can’t Stay. Can’t Go. Refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned 9 and Carter 2016: 15), “A State’s refusal to If the application is successful, the person can be recognise a person, its continued silence, or its granted leave to remain for 30 months, after which demands for ever more evidence may eventually they can apply for a further 30 months’ leave. constitute a failure to consider the person as a After five years, a stateless person can make an national under the operation of its law.” Section application for indefinite leave to remain. 4.6.1 of the Home Office (2016h: 16) instruction on statelessness recognises that “where an If the application is unsuccessful, there is no free- individual has provided evidence that they have standing right of appeal to the independent First- made an application to the national authority only tier Tribunal. Rejected applicants can only apply for to find more and more evidence requested by the administrative review or judicial review, or make a State in question, combined with long delays”, this new application. “in practice amounts to a denial of recognition”. The Red Cross submitted a freedom of information The majority of those who make a Stateless request to the Home Office related to Stateless application are refused asylum seekers. However, applications. According to the reply received, some applicants have never made an asylum between 1 April 2013 and 30 June 2016, a total claim and there is no requirement to do so. There of 1,662 people lodged a Stateless application is no fee to pay to submit a Stateless application, (Draper 2016). Of these, 1,096 had previously but the form is currently available only in English. applied for asylum. As of 30 June 2016, the total With the exception of Scotland, legal aid is number of people who had a decision on their generally not available in the UK for advising, Stateless application was 854 and 41 people have representing or assisting someone who wishes been granted leave to remain on their Stateless to make an application for leave to remain as a application (Draper 2016). stateless person, despite such applications often being factually and legally complex. Legal advisors can apply for exceptional case funding, but this 1.4 The suffering and limbo involves a significant amount of work for the legal facing those who cannot be advisor and they will receive limited remuneration returned only when exceptional case funding is granted (Woodhouse and Carter 2016). Refused asylum seekers who, through no fault of The burden of proof rests with the applicant in their own, cannot be returned to their country of the statelessness procedure and they must prove origin risk falling into crisis. Without the right to a negative: that he or she is not considered a work and with limited or no statutory support, the national of any State. The standard of proof is Red Cross sees people every week who are in also higher than the reasonable degree standard desperate situations stemming from their position applied in refugee status determination. While in society and the world as a person without an application is pending, the individual has no immigration status. Yet the option of returning to right to work and, currently, access to only basic their country of origin is not open to them. support may be available under Section 4.