What provisions exist for stateless people in the US How does a stateless person (one who voluntarily renounced their citizenship while in country) provide identification, arrange travel visas, and get back into the US?
Short answer: You find a country who is willing to recognize you as stateless, and issue you travel papers. At that point you can enter the U.S. by applying for a visa. The USA really does not want to create stateless people. They are laboring diplomatically to eradicate statelessness. As such, the State Department will want to see that you are secure in another country's citizenship before they will repudiate your US citizenship. Otherwise, they are very reluctant. The State Department will insist you do the repudiation in a foreign country at a US embassy. If you want to become stateless with your feet in the United States, you'll likely have a legal fight on your hands. Regardless, it will cost you $2300 in filing fees (plus, all your back taxes) :) At that point, you become the problem of the foreign country. You aren't anyone to the USA, and you have to apply for a visa just like anyone else. When a stated person enters the US, immigration's pivotal concern is whether you'll leave the US consistent with the terms of your visa, i.e. return to your country of citizenship. Being stateless increases this risk, and being a USA expat increases that risk further, since you are so familiar and comfortable in the US. If you found yourself in the kind of piccadillo that would qualify a foreigner for refugee or asylum status, the US would consider it just the same as others, since those statuses include right of residency. Some countries manufacture stateless people, e.g. Syria will not grant citizenship to a non-Muslim born there.
tl;dr My assumption: the U.S. government is considering whether to accept refugees and immigrants (given your Syria comment). The background section talks about State attempts to restrict entry. The answer is nuanced since there are different standards for an entrance decision than there are for someone who is already in the U.S. This is because foreign nationals in their home nations aren't "persons within the jurisdiction of the United States," and so laws like the Civil Rights Act only apply in spirit. What does that mean? We wouldn't expect to see the federal government discriminate based on religion, but we might expect to see decisions made about groups that incidentally share an common religion. This is because the federal government has wide latitude when it comes to alienage---which is just a formal name for policies related to non-citizens. While religion is afforded a high degree of protection, the federal government's alienage policies are governed by the lowest level of judicial scrutiny. This implies a practical challenge: things like religion and national origin can be very difficult to disentangle from questions that pertain to the alienage category. For example, a policy might restrict some group's entry "because of" a particular alienage reason and "in spite of" the fact that most of the affected people happen to share a common religion. Background The Equal Protection Clause U.S. Const. Am. XIV § 1 prohibits States from denying any person within its jurisdiction "equal protection of the laws." The Clause is often applied to the federal government as well, via the Due Process Clause U.S. Const. Am. V. See, e.g. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954). In relation to the clause, laws are reviewed for their constitutionality using either strict, intermediate, or rational basis scrutiny. Strict scrutiny would mean that in order to distinguish based on a particular trait, the government has to have a compelling, narrowly tailored interest, and no less restrictive alternative available. Rational basis just means the government's interest is subject to a lower level of scrutiny (e.g. benefits exceed costs, or don't let in felons). Things like, race, religion, national origin, and some forms of alienage are suspect classes that merit strict scrutiny. This bit about alienage is important. As we'd expect from the above, when States enact alienage statutes, they're subject to strict scrutiny, and when those statues cross the line, the courts have found that State attempts to restrict resident or non-resident aliens encroach upon the federal government's exclusive control over entrance of aliens. Graham v. Department of Pub. Welfare, 403 U.S. 365 (1971). In other words, the federal government, not the States, decides whether various "aliens" are admitted. Note: State scrutiny levels when dealing with undocumented immigrants may be context specific. See, e.g. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) (children and education). The federal government's authority over immigration is further solidified by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Const. Article VI. See Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67 (1967). As such, the courts have applied rational basis scrutiny to the federal government's immigration policy. One reason alienage is interesting is that it tends to encompass things like national origin and religion. This doesn't imply the federal government makes its decisions on the basis of religion. In fact, it'd be hard to make an argument that they do. However, since the categories can be so closely entwined, many scholars have argued for a change in standard. Edit In hindsight, this topic seems quite forward looking. A couple weeks after the OP's question a U.S. presidential candidate (Donald Trump) came out in favor of a ban on entry into the U.S. by Muslims. That led to a flurry of activity, and to this insightful blog post by Professor E. Posner.
It's not possible to marry the US citizen until the first marriage is terminated, and the F-2 status ends when the marriage is terminated. It's not the F-2 status that prevents the marriage to the US citizen; it's the continued existence of the previous marriage. It might be possible to file for change of status (to B-2 perhaps) in anticipation of the termination of the marriage, but it seems unlikely to be accepted by USCIS. It would certainly be unwise to attempt anything like that without the advice of an immigration lawyer.
Would such a person be considered a "natural born citizen," for the purpose of qualifying for the presidency, from October 25th 1994? In other words, after having lived in the US for at least 14 years, could such a person run for the office of the president or the vice president? This is an unresolved issue. Some scholars believe that to be a "natural born citizen" you have to be a citizen on the day that you are born. Other scholars believe that a "natural born citizen" is someone who gains citizenship by a means other than naturalization. No binding precedents resolve the issue because the phrase "natural born citizen" is used nowhere else in the law besides qualification to be the President of the United States, and the issue can't be resolved until someone is purportedly elected because there isn't an actual case or controversy until then, and there haven't been an examples that have come up that have tested this issue. My personal guess is that the courts would make every effort to find that someone who has been elected by the citizens of the United States as President, despite the inevitable debate by the public over someone's qualification as a "natural born citizen" during the campaign, is eligible to hold that position, because to do otherwise would seem massively undemocratic. So, I suspect that retroactive citizenship at birth would be held by the courts to make someone a "natural born citizen" and eligible to serve as President. Then again, I could see this issue being resolved by the courts on basically partisan lines too with conservative judges tending to hold that a liberal candidate was ineligible for office, and liberal judges making the opposite conclusions about a liberal candidate. This is one fair reading of what happened in the case of Bush v. Gore. Would the answer depend on whether the person had been naturalized before 1994? The citizenship by naturalization is irrelevant to whether you have another grounds for claiming citizenship that was present at birth or did not arise from naturalization. On October 25th, 1994, the naturalization became redundant.
This is an interesting hypothetical. In this scenario, Country Z does not have jurisdiction to enforce such a law on foreign nationals, unless Country Z has an extradition treaty with Country A. Generally, however, these types of laws would never be enforced as they are egregious abuses of government, and could possibly be elevated to the International Court of Justice if Country Z actually charges any individuals with such a crime. In these instances, however, war is a very unlikely scenario, since this would often be expensive and any escalation would most likely be small skirmishes that would lead to an eventual ceasefire, with the encouragement of the international community, without the involvement of UN Peacekeeping troops.
No. Both your country of origin and your new home country will only care of your name as in the documents issued by each of them respectively. Mind though that absence of obligation to synchronize your names does not mean that you can freely use both identities within one country. For example, opening a bank account in the US using your original passport/name when you are already officially using another name there would be a very grey area bordering with identify fraud as it would effectively enable you to operate two different identities to gain any benefits not otherwise available.
Extradition treaties/agreements The general principle of international law is that all countries are sovereign and have jurisdiction over all people within their borders; in this regard they are not required to render any persons within their borders to another country, not even to be prosecuted for a crime. However, if the country the person is in has an extradition treaty or agreement with the country seeking to extradite them (in your case India) then the government may, in some circumstances, apprehend and render the person. Bars to extradition Commonly, the crime for which the person is to be extradited may be a bar to extradition, either because it is not illegal in the country that would surrender the person, or because it is of certain natures (usually political crimes), or because of the penalty the crime attracts (death penalty, for instance). As for this particular case, if I've read the news article correctly and that Mallya now resides in the UK, then there are extradition treaties between the UK and India and the subject could be extradited.
The U.S. Constitution merely requires that you be a U.S. citizen, that you be at least 30 years of age, that you have resided nine years in the United States, and that you currently reside in the state from which you are elected, to be a U.S. Senator. The courts have held that extra-constitutional qualifications for the office may not be imposed. The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the historical understanding that the Constitution provides the exclusive qualifications to be a Member of Congress, and that neither a state nor Congress itself may add to or change such qualifications to federal office, absent a constitutional amendment. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 522 (1969); U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779, 800-801 (1995); Cook v. Gralike, 531 U.S. 510 (2001). (Source: Congressional Research Service). Therefore, a dual citizen can be a U.S. Senator under U.S. law. This said, the oath of office involved in becoming a U.S. Senator is something that would be considered a voluntary relinquishment of the individual's non-U.S. citizenship by many countries. Under U.S. law: [W]ith the exception of formal denaturalization, a United States citizen can lose his citizenship only if he voluntarily performs an act that is “in derogation of allegiance to the United States,” 42 Op. Att’y Gen. 397, 400 (1969), and that was committed with the intent to relinquish United States citizenship. See Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252, 261 (1980). “[A]n act which does not reasonably manifest an individual’s transfer or abandonment of allegiance to the United States cannot be made a basis for expatriation.” 42 Op. Att’y. Gen. at 400. Although the Supreme Court has definitively held that Congress cannot provide by statute for involuntary expatriations, it has upheld Congress’ authority to prescribe by statute the types of acts that Congress considers to be generally “highly persuasive evidence . . . of a purpose to abandon citizenship.” See Nishikawa v. Dulles, 356 U.S. at 139; Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. at 261, 265. These acts are set forth in § 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1481. One of these specified acts is a “formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state.” 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(6). Other specified acts include: obtaining naturalization in a foreign state; taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state; serving in the armed forces of a foreign state; serving in an office or employment under the government of a foreign state that requires assumption of the nationality of that state or a declaration of allegiance to that state; or committing an act of treason against the United States. Id. § 1481(a)(l)-(4), (7). Thus, under U.S. law, the oath of office required to serve as a U.S. Senator if made to a state other than the United States (e.g. in connection with being sworn in as a Mexican Senator), would end the dual citizenship of the person being sworn in to public office, and make them only a citizen of the country in which that elected official held public office (in this example, of Mexico). Many countries cause dual citizenship to be relinquished under similar circumstances.