Government Revoked Hundreds of British Citizenships Last Year

Shamima Begum being interviewed by Sky News in northern Syria on Feb. 17, 2019. The so-called ISIS bride has claimed she was radicalised both online and "between her circle of friends." Reuters

The government has increasingly used its powers to revoke the citizenship of hundreds of individuals in the last year, data show.

A total of 316 people had their British citizenship removed on the basis of fraud or suspected terror links, the highest yearly number ever recorded.

The 2022 figures make up a third of all deprivations issued by the Home Office since 2010.

In those 12 years, 1,064 people had their UK citizen status removed, of which over 840 were owing to fraud.

Deprivation orders on the basis of fraud are issued to people who obtained their citizenship through registration or naturalisation, and were found to have gained their British status through false representation or “concealment of a material fact.”

Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal upheld a Home Office decision to revoke the British citizenship of a Pakistani national on the basis he had obtained his UK status through “dishonest concealment of a material fact.”

Syed Tahseen Ahmed—who came to the UK in 2006—failed to disclose an ongoing relationship between he and his wife in Pakistan at the time he obtained leave to remain in the UK based on his relationship with a Polish woman.

Wife in Pakistan

According to court documents, Mr. Ahmed had started a relationship with a Polish national months after arriving in the UK to study.

In 2009, he applied for a residence card on the basis of his relationship, with his request approved the following year.

In 2011 he travelled to Pakistan and got his wife pregnant, who later gave birth to their fourth child.

Mr. Ahmed applied for permanent residency in 2015, stating on the application that he had divorced his wife in 2008, failing to mention the birth of his fourth child.

However, the European Economic Area (EEA) application was refused on the basis that his Polish partner was not registered with the Worker Registration Scheme.

He appealed the decision at the UK’s First-tier Tribunal immigration and asylum chamber where it was heard that he had now separated from his EEA partner.

However, the appeal was allowed on the basis that the appellant had already acquired permanent residence before the relationship broke down.

His appeal was successful and he was issued with a permanent residence card in July 2017.

The following month, Mr. Ahmed travelled to Pakistan and reconciled with his former wife before returning to the UK.

The next year, he was granted full British citizenship and then applied for entry clearance for his wife and children.

The court heard the application made no reference to the divorce deed or to his previous relationship with the Polish national.

The home secretary took the decision to revoke his citizenship in 2019, and despite a number of immigration court appeals, judges upheld the Home Office decision.

Mr. Ahmed then took his case to the Court of Appeal, where three senior judges examined his case and again upheld the deprivation order.

A general view of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, home to the High Court, on Oct. 8, 2018. Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Shamima Begum Case

Home Office data show that deprivation for fraud has increased markedly over the course of the decade, with just one such order recorded in 2012, compared to 308 in 2022.

A government report into the removal of British citizenship earlier this year stated the rise may be “partly” related to the fact that, until late 2017, the Home Office had been dealing with many fraud cases by declaring that the grant of citizenship was a “nullity.”

This means it was treated as though naturalisation had never taken place.

Under this approach, there was no need for a deprivation order, with 262 nullity decisions issued from 2007 to 2017.

In 2017, the Supreme Court found that nullity had been applied to a wider range of fraud cases than the law permits.

As a result, the Home Office withdrew some nullity decisions and issued deprivation orders instead.

Between April 2015 and December 2022, over 1,200 appeals against citizenship deprivation were made.

Between 2021 and 2022, 188 appeals determined in 2021–22 with a success rate of 29 percent.

The government noted this “has usually been higher in previous years.”

The figures do not include appeals with a national security element, which are heard at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which does not not routinely publish statistics.

Earlier this year, the SIAC rejected an appeal by British born jihadi bride Shamima Begum, who travelled to Syria in February 2015, aged 15. She was deprived of her citizenship four years later.

The SIAC had ruled in 2020 that she was a citizen of Bangladesh, so would not be left stateless.

A separate appeal on other grounds, including that she was a victim of human trafficking, was rejected in February 2023.

Muslim cleric Mustafa Kamel Mustafa arrives with a masked bodyguard to conduct Friday prayers in the street outside the closed Finsbury Park Mosque in London on April. 30, 2004. The 55-year-old Egyptian cleric, who also goes by the alias Abu Hamza al-Masri, was found guilty on May 19, 2014 in federal court in New York of providing material support to terrorist organizations. Max Nash, File/AP Photo

Abu Hamza

However, some people have successfully appealed against deprivation.

This includes the first person against whom deprivation was attempted under modern powers, hate preacher Abu Hamza.

The Egyptian-born imam—also known as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa—was served with a deprivation decision in April 2003. He ultimately succeeded on appeal and so remains a British citizen.

Mr. Hamza was previously jailed in the UK for inciting violence and later extradited to New York after an eight-year legal battle.

He is currently serving a life sentence in the United States for terrorism offences.

Before Mr. Hamza, there had been no deprivation of citizenship for 30 years.

Hilal al-Jedda, an Iraqi-born refugee who was first deprived of his British citizenship in December 2007, also succeeded on appeal to the Supreme Court.

However, three weeks after the 2013 Supreme Court judgment, the home secretary issued Mr. Al-Jedda a second deprivation order.

Of the 217 total number of deprivation orders made under “conducive to the public good,” almost all related to national security reasons.

Almost half—104 orders—were issued in 2017 correlating with the threat from jihadi terror group ISIS.

For people who have naturalised as British, citizenship deprivation is permitted even if it would leave them stateless.

Someone who was born British and has no other nationality cannot be deprived of their citizenship in any circumstances.

Under the Royal Perogative, the home secretary also has the power withdraw a person’s British passport.

Someone whose passport is withdrawn remains a British citizen, but their overseas travel is restricted.

Home Office policy states this will be done “sparingly,” such as where the person intends to travel abroad to engage in terrorism.

There is no right of appeal against having a passport withdrawn, but the person can ask for an internal government review or apply for judicial review by a judge.

From 2013 to 2021, there were 94 cases of passport withdrawal for national security reasons, according to the Home Office.