The Upper Tribunal has given guidance on the correct approach in deprivation appeals. The headnote to this case, Chimi (deprivation appeals; scope and evidence) Cameroon [2023] UKUT 00115 (IAC), says: Page contentsBackgroundThe lawCondition precedentDiscretionEvidenceThe decision Background Ms Chimi was born in September 1977 in Cameroon. In 2000 she moved to...
We live in what some have called ‘multi-status Britain’, a country in which discrimination is baked into a social, economic and racial hierarchy based on different forms of legal status. With British citizenship, other forms of British nationality, indefinite leave to remain, permanent residence, the five year route to settlement,...
On 14 October 2022 the Home Office released a second iteration of their caseworker guidance for handling applications to register as a British citizen in special circumstances (section 4L, inserted by the Nationality Act Borders Act 2022). The caseworking scenarios from the first version are now supplemented by fresh examples,...
The case of Muslija (deprivation: reasonably foreseeable consequences) [2022] UKUT 337 (IAC) makes it clear that the reasonably foreseeable consequences of deprivation of British citizenship do not include predicting the outcome of a subsequent human rights appeal. The case concerns an Albanian national who obtained refugee status, and subsequently citizenship,...
The Home Office has launched a new application process for people of Chagossian descent to obtain British citizenship or British overseas territories citizenship. The introduction of this route is certainly welcome. Whilst the Chagossians are still fighting to return to their homeland, this is a step in the right direction...
Is the Home Office under a duty to provide information establishing a child’s nationality? This is the question considered by the Inner House of the Court of Session in AS v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] CSIH 16. Unfortunately, the answer is no. The Home Office’s duty...
We covered the nationality portion of the New Plan for Immigration in an earlier article. Many of those proposals, largely concerning British Overseas Territories citizens and the Windrush generation, were notably less cruel and unusual than the other aspects of the New Plan, and might even have been described as...
On 1 July 2021, the British Nationality Act 1981 (Immigration Rules Appendix EU) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021 No. 743) introduced a new section 10A to the British Nationality Act 1981. This new section is aimed at ensuring that certain children born from 1 July 2021 onwards will automatically acquire British citizenship in situations where […]
...The New Plan for Immigration Policy Statement of March 2021 (the New Plan) contains proposals to make significant changes to immigration and nationality law and policy. This article addresses the proposals set out in Chapter 3, which concern changes to British nationality law, in the hope of enabling affected people...
This is a guest post by Isaac Abraham, Nath Gbikpi, Tom Hardwick, Barry O’Leary and Mala Savjani. On 22 July 2020, over 180 historians of Britain, the British Empire, and colonialism published an open letter calling for the review of the history chapter of the UK’s official “Life in the...
You would be forgiven for thinking there are some special rights or privileges attached to being a British citizen. Politicians are fond of telling us how great it is to be British and how it is a privilege not a right. Our government charges foreign nationals a small fortune to...
To go along with the private jet and luxury yacht, the current ‘must-have’ for a discerning multi-millionaire seems to be a range of international passports. The phenomenon of citizenship by investment has emerged over the last few decades and developed into a billion dollar industry. These “CIP” schemes enable the super-rich...
A British citizen can be deprived of his citizenship if he shows disloyalty to the state, the Court of Appeal has found in the case of Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2064. The case is interesting, thought-provoking and concerning in equal measure. Taking away...
Yesterday’s judgment in Aziz & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1884 saw the Court of Appeal uphold the Home Secretary’s decision to use her power to strip members of a notorious Rochdale grooming gang of their British citizenship. The use of a power once...
The recent case of Inga Lockton is the most high-profile recent example of growing problems that EU citizens and their families face with applying for British citizenship. Ms Lockton lived in the UK for 39 years, was married to a British citizen and had British children. She was elected a...
What procedure should be followed when someone is deprived of British citizenship, at a time when he or she is abroad, to enable return to the UK to participate in a statutory appeal to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC)? Should judicial review proceedings be initiated to seek an interim...
A Supreme Court decision handed down today is good news for people who have had their British citizenship taken away because it was obtained under false pretences. The Home Office has accepted that in most cases, deprivation rather than nullity is the correct process. Deprivation gives people stripped of citizenship...
To deprive a person of their citizenship on the grounds of their behaviour or opinion is to cast them out of society. It is a power of exile or banishment. In Roman law, the punishment of “proscription” was civic and literal death, unless the person went into exile. It would...
Our new ebook guide Naturalising as a British citizen is now available for purchase for £9.99 (free for Free Movement members). For most people, an application for naturalisation is something they can complete on their own. This ebook helps individual applicants to do just that. In 2016 just shy of 150,000...
Stateless people in the UK face enormous hurdles in the road to becoming British citizens. One of those barriers is the extraordinarily high cost of acquiring British citizenship, writes Asylum Aid’s Cynthia Orchard. The UK government has taken some steps to ensure its approach to statelessness complies with international law....
Under the British Nationality Act 1981, a child who is born in the UK and is (and always has been) stateless is entitled to register as a British citizen. See Schedule 2, Paragraph 3: 3 (1) A person born in the United Kingdom or a British overseas territory after commencement...
The Home Office has quietly tightened up the criteria for granting British citizenship under the good character test. This had passed me by so I thought it useful to flag up – and many thanks to Alex Moran for point it out. A number of undesirable behaviours have been added...
Coming back from my break and looking through various updates, I was struck by a series of articles on citizenship and nationality laws in the event of Scottish independence following the vote this Thursday. Some of these seem to me fundamentally to misunderstand the independence process as it is likely to...