Deprivation of British citizenship and withdrawal of passports • Hilal al-Jedda, an Iraqi-born refugee who was first deprived of his British citizenship in December 2007 but succeeded on appeal to the Supreme Court in 2013. Three weeks after the Supreme Court judgment, the Home Secretary issued a second deprivation order. 47 • Shamima Begum, born in the UK to parents originally from Bangladesh. She travelled to Syria in February 2015, aged 15, and was deprived of her citizenship four years later. SIAC ruled in 2020 that she was a Bangladeshi citizen, so would not be left stateless. 48 A separate appeal on other grounds, including that she was a victim of human trafficking, was rejected.49 Who cannot be deprived of their citizenship? There is also a cohort of people who cannot be deprived of their citizenship in any circumstances. The law does not permit people who were born British (as opposed to acquiring their citizenship by naturalisation or registration) to be deprived if that would leave them stateless. That means people who have only one nationality (British) have legal protection against deprivation that people with multiple nationalities do not. Some commentators say this gives the appearance of discrimination against people from migrant and ethnic minority backgrounds, who are more likely to have dual nationality than people whose recent ancestors were all born in the UK. 50 The government has stressed that “law-abiding people have nothing to fear” from citizenship deprivation merely because they are a dual national. 51 47 Secretary of State for the Home Department v Al-Jedda [2013] UKSC 62, 9 October 2013; Al-Jedda v Secretary of State for the Home Department SC/66/2008, 18 July 2014; appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 24 March 2017 (unreported) 48 49 50 51 14 Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department SC/163/2019, 7 February 2020 Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department, SC/163/2019, 22 February 2023; Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 152, 23 February 2024; Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department, UKSC 2024/0096, 7 August 2024 For example, Baroness Warsi, HL Deb 27 January 2022 c541; Institute of Race Relations, Citizenship: from right to privilege, 11 September 2022; “Exclusive: British citizenship of six million people could be jeopardised by Home Office plans”, New Statesman, 1 December 2021 For example, HL Deb 28 February 2022 c598 Commons Library Research Briefing, 18 December 2024