UNMAKING CITIZENS: THE EXPANSION OF CITIZENSHIP REVOCATION IN RESPONSE TO TERRORISM revocation, many states have other extra-constitutional revocation laws and policies. For example, as of 2014, 33 European states have laws or policies stipulating legal grounds for loss of citizenship.7 Additionally, 22 states have laws dictating grounds for revocation related to specific activities that directly or indirectly contravene state interests.8 Citizenship revocation has been linked to the post-9/11 expansion of state security measures and has been justified as a necessary tool to prevent terrorist acts.9 From a national security perspective, revocation is a counter-terrorism response that can reduce the likelihood of transnational terrorist attacks. Counterterror responses are seen as necessary, particularly since the estimated number of ISIS foreign fighters reached over 20,000 and included citizens from Western Europe (includes UK) (4,000), US (100), Canada (100), Australia (100-250), Saudi Arabia (1,500-2,500), Tunisia (1,500-3,000), Morocco (1,500), Jordan (1,500), Lebanon (800), and Turkey (600).10 These fighters are often trained and experienced in specific tactics or skills associated with terrorism. According to Macklin (2015), “that states can treat noncitizens in ways they cannot lawfully treat citizens incentivized states to exploit migration law to pursue counterterrorism objectives post-9/11.”11 While citizenship revocation is not entirely new, citizenship revocation’s expansion in light of transnational terrorism is new.12 The purpose of this comparative report is to reflect on the expansion of citizenship revocation and provide the public with a better understanding of this international citizenship policy trend. The report includes narrative descriptions highlighting revocation laws in context and includes some case examples. The authors of this paper conducted research on citizenship revocation in the UK, Canada, and Australia. The following findings and recommendations from their research are based on pertinent contemporary research on citizenship revocation and data/information gathered through freedom of information requests. 2 Findings Recent actions taken by the Australian, Canadian, and UK governments illustrate a troubling trend towards the expansion of citizenship revocation against its own citizens in response to transnational terrorist threats.13 The military conflicts in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State, the migration crisis to which they have contributed, and ISIS-inspired and -supported attacks elsewhere have led to growing pressures, fears, and policy responses. As terrorist threats are increasingly recognized as neither national nor international, but transnational, these three governments, among others, have taken undemocratic steps towards promoting security through decreasing the protections of their citizens with a particular inequitable emphasis on nonnative-born citizens. By revoking citizenship and all related rights of confirmed or suspected threats to national security, these three governments are increasing the stateless or semi-stateless population and altering what it means to be a citizen in their liberal democracies. Of these three states, Canada alone has 7 Gerard Rene de Groot, Maarten Vink, and Iseult Honohan, Loss of Citizenship, (Florence, Italy: European Union Democracy Observatory on Citizenship, 2014). 8 Forcese, “A Tale of Two Citizenships.” 9 Audrey Macklin, “Sticky Citizenship,” in The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept, eds. R. E. Howard-Hassman and M. Walton-Roberts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). 10 Shiva Jayaraman, “International Terrorism and Statelessness: Revoking the Citizenship of ISIL Foreign Fighters,” Chicago Journal of International Law, 2016, 17 (1): 178-216. 11 Ibid. 12 Forcese, “A Tale of Two Citizenships”; Matthew Gibney, “Should Citizenship be Conditional? The Ethics of Denationalization,” The Journal of Politics 75, no. 3 (2013): 646-58. 13 The Data Team, “The evolution of the Islamic State,” The Economist, August 12, 2016, https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-10. Center for Migration Studies of New York | 2