Shifting Borders of Belonging 31 and was practiced under the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but it has increased, and become further institutionalized, under Donald J. Trump’s administration. For instance, in February 2020, the US Department of Justice established a “Denaturalization Section,” which purportedly targets “terrorists, war criminals, sex offenders, and ‘other fraudsters.’”31 Increasingly, legislation is being amended to include reasons of national security, broadly worded, to encompass a wide array of threats or activities. One prominent and recent example is Jack Letts, more popularly known as “Jihadi Jack.” Letts was a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Canada. Letts was reportedly raised in the United Kingdom, converted to Islam at the age of sixteen, and joined ISIS, or the Islamic state abroad, a jihadist terror group known for its brutal mass killings.32 Letts’ overseas activities are not substantiated, but in an interview with BBC, he stated that he was an enemy of the United Kingdom, that he thought he was doing something good, and that he had made a big mistake.33 While he was imprisoned in a Kurdish jail in northern Syria in August 2019, the United Kingdom revoked Letts’ citizenship. The move to strip Letts of UK citizenship blindsided Canada. The Minister of Public Safety in Canada commented, “Canada is disappointed that the United Kingdom has taken this unilateral action to off-load their responsibilities,” but also added that they had “no legal obligation to facilitate” the return of Canadian citizens detained in Syria.34 Former defense minister of the United Kingdom, Tobias Ellwood, agreed, stating that citizenship revocation “shunts the responsibility elsewhere” when many persons were “radicalised here in the UK.”35 The UK Home Office held, however, that “[t]his power is one way we can counter the terrorist threat posed by some of the most dangerous individuals and keep our country safe.”36 While Letts is fortunate because he held dual citizenship, there are two normative implications to the United Kingdom’s move to revoke citizenship of someone it deems as a terrorist threat. The first is that it legitimizes the very act of revocation even where it does not leave a person stateless. It thus makes citizenship probationary and precarious. Second, it legitimizes the use of citizenship deprivation as a form of banishment or punishment and allows the state to avoid responsibility for the acts of its citizens. R. Prasad, “What Does Trump’s New Denaturalisation Section Do?” BBC News, February 28, 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51681840. 32 D. Sabbagh, “Jack Letts Stripped of British Citizenship,” The Guardian, August 18, 2019, www .theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/18/jack-letts-stripped-british-citizenship-isis-canada; “Jihadi Jack: IS Recruit Jack Letts Loses UK Citizenship,” BBC News, August 18, 2019, www.bbc. com/news/uk-49385376. 33 “Jack Letts, Islamic State Recruit: ‘I Was Enemy of UK,’” BBC, June 21, 2019, www.bbc.com/ news/uk-48624104. 34 “Jihadi Jack: IS Recruit Jack Letts Loses UK Citizenship.” 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 31 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press