They are the 45 men and five women Peter Dutton doesn't want you to know about.

Slated for deportation - but no country to send them back to - these nameless, stateless people have remained in detention indefinitely.

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One of them has spent almost 10 years locked up, for the 'crime' of not knowing where or when he was born, and reaching Australia without a valid visa or passport.

"Potentially, they can stay locked up forever," says Michelle Foster, director of the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at Melbourne Law School.

"Under Australian law, someone found to be a non-citizen and not a refugee must be detained for as long as it takes to have them deported.

"But if you do not know, or cannot prove, your citizenship, there is no country to send you back to.

"These people are truly facing indefinite detention."

Ten years detained

Said Imasi is marking his 10th year in Australian detention.

He thinks he may have been born in the Canary Islands in the late 1980s, but his first memories are of being in an orphanage in Spain at the age of about six.

At the age of about nine he ran away and ended up on the streets of Paris and then Brussels.

It is thought he was then kept as a house slave in Belgium until he became a teenager, when he managed to escape and flee to the Netherlands.

Said Imasi has been in detention for almost 10 years. Credit: Supplied

It was there that an international criminal gang recruited him.

Imasi spent his teenage years engaged in drug couriering and money laundering throughout Europe, from a base in Norway.

Fear of reprisals

His previous lawyer, Alison Battisson, said he tried to leave the gang many times, but was unable to out of fear of reprisals.

In November 2009, after a gang member held a knife to his throat, he decided to flee as far away from Norway as possible.

His plan was to get to Australia, then make it by boat to New Zealand, where he felt sure the gang's tentacles would not reach.

He never made it.

On 28 January 2010, Imasi arrived at Melbourne's Tullamarine International Airport under a forged or fake Norwegian passport and was arrested.

UN reproach

Seven years later, the UN Human Rights Council investigated Imasi's case.

It ruled his ongoing deprivation of liberty was in contravention of six articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and four articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called on the Australian Government to "take the steps necessary to remedy the situation of Mr Imasi without delay and bring it into conformity with the relevant international norms".

"Taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr Imasi immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law," the UN's working group concluded.

Imasi remains in detention.

High Court blow

In February this year, Battisson challenged the lawfulness of Imasi's ongoing incarceration in the High Court.

The court concluded that the government had done nothing illegal because under the current Migration Act, anyone found to be an unlawful non-citizen must be detained until they can be deported.

The court accepted the government's claim that Imasi had not fully co-operated with its attempts to ascertain his identity and nationality.

"In the absence of the plaintiff's cooperation it cannot be concluded that the options for his removal within a reasonable time have been exhausted," the bench unanimously found.

Detention by default

Battisson said if her prior client had fled to the UK instead of Australia he would have been recognised as a stateless person and accorded refuge, on the grounds he had nowhere else to go and no country was under obligation to accept him back.

"But in Australia, we don’t have any law that captures people like Imasi who fall through the gaps," Battisson said.

"They just remain in detention by default."

Child of bad character

Almost a year to the day after the UN called on the Australian government to release Imasi, it made a similar ruling on the illegal detention of another stateless person in Australia.

As Iraqi Kurds, Ahmad Shalikhan and his mother have no officially recognised homeland.

They fled from Iran to Australia when he was 16 years old.

Chevron Right Icon 'He was a traumatised child in detention.'

His mother was eventually granted a protection visa and released into the community.

But at the age of 21, Shalikhan remains behind razor wire.

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Shortly after arrival, he had a minor run-in with the law in detention and received a caution.

The Australian government has used the incident to deny the teenager a visa on character grounds and flag his imminent deportation.

Ahmad Shalikhan has been in detention for more than five years. Credit: Supplied

"He was a traumatised child in detention and he played up for a bit," says Battisson.

"The government makes a big deal about far fewer children being in detention, but what people don't realise is that's because some of them have just grown up.

'Indefinitely warehoused'

"They are now adults in detention and their lives have been indefinitely warehoused."

More than five years on, Shalikhan still has no officially recognised homeland to be deported to.

Chevron Right Icon 'His detention is not reasonable.'

"Given that Mr Shalikhan is stateless, any return of Mr Shalikhan to the Islamic Republic of Iran would constitute refoulement (liable to be subject to prosecution)," reported the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

"The source thus submits that unless Mr Shalikhan is released from administrative detention, he will be in detention indefinitely.

"Given that he cannot return to the Islamic Republic of Iran, his detention is not reasonable."

Government silence

The Department of Home Affairs and Dutton have repeatedly refused to respond to 7NEWS.com.au's questions over why Australia continues to hold 45 men and five women in indefinite detention for the 'crime' of being stateless, in circumstances the UN Human Rights Council has condemned as unlawful, indefinite and arbitrary.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that the right to a nationality is a fundamental human right.

Chevron Right Icon 'Decisions have become much less compassionate.'

"Administrative detention is not meant to be punitive," says Battisson, who has handled dozens of cases on behalf of asylum seekers.

"It's clear since the last election, government decisions have become much less compassionate.

"It's a personal, ideological stance from Dutton, that is not to the benefit the Australian people."