What does it mean to belong nowhere?
Over 200,000 people living in the U.S. are estimated to be stateless or at risk of statelessness– not having nationality or citizenship to any country in the world.
As the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, questions of citizenship, belonging, and who is fully included in the American story have taken on renewed urgency. For stateless people, whose lack of nationality leaves them in a legal limbo, these challenges are especially profound. For survivors of torture and trauma, the absence of legal protections threatens the very stability that healing depends on.
Join the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) and United Stateless (USL) for Freedom to Belong: A Conversation on Citizenship and the Path to Healing, a free virtual conversation on Tuesday, July 22, exploring what it means to live without a recognized nationality and the impact statelessness has on healing, identity, and belonging. At a moment when the nation is debating citizenship, belonging, and who counts as American, this conversation offers a perspective too often missing from the public discourse. Hear directly from members of the United Stateless community and gain insights from CVT clinicians on the human toll of statelessness and why the right to belong is, at its core, the right to have rights. Together, we’ll also explore the solutions already within reach– from policy reforms to community-based support– and why lasting social change has always been rooted not only in justice, but in care. Healing, belonging, and legal recognition are deeply interconnected, and each has a role to play in building a future where everyone has the right to nationality and a place to belong.
Speakers:
Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough | Executive Director, United Stateless
Karina Ambartsoumian-Clough is a founding member and Executive Director of United Stateless. Born of Armenian and Ukrainian heritage, became stateless following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. She has been stateless in the United States since childhood and has transformed her personal experience into an advocacy platform, raising awareness of statelessness and the barriers faced by those without nationality. A speaker, writer, and community organizer, Karina has worked to elevate stateless voices and advance solutions for stateless people in the United States and globally. Her contributions have been recognized with the 2020 Women’s Refugee Commission Voices of Courage Award, the 2021 Women Leading the 175th Award by PA Congresswoman Mary Isaacson, the 2024 We Are All America’s Women’s Community Catalyst Award, and the 2025 J.M. Kaplan Innovation Prize.
Leora Hudak | Migration Partnerships Program Manager, The Center for Victims of Torture
Leora Hudak, LCSW, is the program manager for migration partnerships at CVT. She oversees mental health and psychosocial support programming at the U.S.-Mexico border and in Latin America. In this role, she provides supervision, oversight and training to CVT staff and partners on best practices working with torture survivors and people in migration in the Americas. Leora also leads CVT’s work on statelessness and provides training to external partners on staff wellbeing and trauma-informed practice. Leora has worked with CVT since 2014 in various roles, including as a psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. Leora holds a Master’s Degree in social work from the University of Chicago Crown School of Social Work, Policy and Practice.
Moderated by Martine Kalaw | Stateless advocate and author
Martine Kalaw is a speaker, author, advocate, and stateless survivor whose life and work bridge the lived experience of statelessness with global leadership development. Her memoir, Illegal Among Us, chronicles her journey from statelessness and undocumented status to U.S. citizenship and executive leadership.
As Global Ambassador for United Stateless (USL), Martine curates and facilitates conversations on statelessness in the United States for a global audience, raising international awareness of an issue that affects millions of people worldwide and ensuring stateless voices are heard on the world stage.
Martine brings over 15 years of talent development expertise to her work, and at the center of everything she does is a single throughline: humans and humanity. She runs a boutique consulting firm specializing in leadership, talent development, and inclusion, partnering with organizations including The Ad Council, Wheels Up, Tiffany & Co., Howard Hughes, and The Riverside Company. A core focus of her consulting practice is helping organizations integrate AI into their workforce without losing the human element, ensuring that technology adoption strengthens rather than erodes connection, judgment, and care among employees. She currently serves as VP of Learning & Development at Salesloft, where she leads enablement strategy for a global workforce. Martine has spoken at organizations including Tedx, Sandler Training, LinkedIn, Bank of America, and Cornell University, and is the author of two books.
About CVT
At the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), we focus on healing the wounds of torture and putting an end to it everywhere. We do this by offering mental health and psychosocial care to survivors, as well as supporting peer treatment centers, human rights activists, and other organizations in their efforts to promote healing and justice. We also work to prevent torture and human rights abuses through advocacy, and by promoting accountability for past abuses.
About USL
United Stateless (USL) is the only U.S. organization dedicated exclusively to addressing statelessness. Founded and led by people with lived experience, USL provides legal services, mental health and psychosocial support, community-building programs, and advocacy to advance durable solutions for stateless people. Through its work, USL is helping build a future where everyone in the United States has the right to a nationality, a place to belong, and the opportunity to fully realize the promise of America.
