From the sublime to the ridiculous
Or...the inhumanity continues. See here.
I think the Home Office have finally lost it.
"Mum-of-five Nikki Fetzko says the Home Office has written to 22-year-old James Ailmore informing him he will be re-arrested at the prison gates and put on a plane. Ailmore is due for release on July 7 – having served half of a 16-month sentence for affray and theft. Miss Fetzko, of Wartnaby Road, Ab Kettleby, said: "James was born in Germany because his dad was in the Army and was stationed in Fallingbostel at the time. "We lived there for a couple of years and then came back to Melton where James has lived ever since. He isn't German. I can't understand why the Home Office wants to send him there. "We can't find his birth certificate but I am almost 100 per cent sure it says he is a British national. James has been a bit of a nuisance and I think that's why they are doing it."
I'm not an expert on German nationality law, but I do know enough to know that theGermans have not got a system of ius soli (that is, acquisition of citizenship by birth in a place - the Irish broadly have such a system, with some exceptions, and so does the US). That is, there is absolutely no chance that James is German by birth (and he is certainly British by descent assuming that his parents are British).
The most spooky bit at the end is this:
A spokesman for the Home Office refused to comment on individual cases, but said: "We would never seek to deport anyone who is a British citizen. When someone is subject to removal proceedings they need to provide evidence to prove they are a British citizen."
Looks like there is going to be a presumption that all prisoners are not British unless they can prove otherwise. Keep your birth certificate, and that of your parents, etc., handy, just in case.
I think the Home Office have finally lost it.
"Mum-of-five Nikki Fetzko says the Home Office has written to 22-year-old James Ailmore informing him he will be re-arrested at the prison gates and put on a plane. Ailmore is due for release on July 7 – having served half of a 16-month sentence for affray and theft. Miss Fetzko, of Wartnaby Road, Ab Kettleby, said: "James was born in Germany because his dad was in the Army and was stationed in Fallingbostel at the time. "We lived there for a couple of years and then came back to Melton where James has lived ever since. He isn't German. I can't understand why the Home Office wants to send him there. "We can't find his birth certificate but I am almost 100 per cent sure it says he is a British national. James has been a bit of a nuisance and I think that's why they are doing it."
I'm not an expert on German nationality law, but I do know enough to know that theGermans have not got a system of ius soli (that is, acquisition of citizenship by birth in a place - the Irish broadly have such a system, with some exceptions, and so does the US). That is, there is absolutely no chance that James is German by birth (and he is certainly British by descent assuming that his parents are British).
The most spooky bit at the end is this:
A spokesman for the Home Office refused to comment on individual cases, but said: "We would never seek to deport anyone who is a British citizen. When someone is subject to removal proceedings they need to provide evidence to prove they are a British citizen."
Looks like there is going to be a presumption that all prisoners are not British unless they can prove otherwise. Keep your birth certificate, and that of your parents, etc., handy, just in case.
posted by BondWoman at 1:30 pm
3 Comments:
Hi,
What the Home Office say in your final paragraph is disingenuous too, since they do remove British Citizens, but only if they are minors ... There are a sizeable number of British children whose non-British parents are removed each year. I know this from experience working with one such child, but an academic from Oxford researches and writes up this area (in Public Law). In the case I know about the Home Office didn't technically remove the child, they just gave the mother the choice between leaving with the child, or leaving and having the child taken into care ... Guess what she chose.
This is where the Irish situation is different. The courts don't allow the deportation, normally, of parents of Irish born children and in fact a lot of people have got residency via that means. It is very controversial and was one of the reasons for restricting the ius soli for children of parents who are not Irish nationals and have little connection to Ireland. However, an additional complication is that if the child is not a British citizen, but is a citizen of another Member State resident in the UK as an EU citizen, the UK cannot deport either and must give residency to the caring parents. This is the Chen case.
Yup - we couldn't use the Chen case sadly as there was no EU element. But it stinks that the HO Minister can grant nationality to the child under a discretionary power because of her British father and then less than a month later render the citizenship meaningless by taking the mother into detention in order to remove. I was ashamed to be British.
Post a Comment
<< Home