Canada to consider revoking terrorists’ citizenship

As I wrote yesterday, it is next to impossible for a U.S. citizen to involuntarily lose their citizenship, even if they join an army or terrorist organization waging war against the United States. Legislative efforts to change this have met with little success.  But with Canadian citizens implicated in both last year’s attack on a ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

As I wrote yesterday, it is next to impossible for a U.S. citizen to involuntarily lose their citizenship, even if they join an army or terrorist organization waging war against the United States. Legislative efforts to change this have met with little success. 

As I wrote yesterday, it is next to impossible for a U.S. citizen to involuntarily lose their citizenship, even if they join an army or terrorist organization waging war against the United States. Legislative efforts to change this have met with little success. 

But with Canadian citizens implicated in both last year’s attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria and last month’s siege at a gas facility in Algeria, Ottawa is considering taking action to change their own laws on this topic: 

"Canadian citizenship is predicated on loyalty to this country, and I cannot think of a more obvious act of renouncing one’s sense of loyalty than going and committing acts of terror," Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told reporters on Wednesday.

Kenney said citizenship can now be revoked only if it was shown to have been gained fraudulently.

[…]

 

Kenney endorsed a bill introduced by Conservative legislator Devinder Shory that would enable the citizenship of dual nationals to be revoked if they engage in war against Canada. He suggested expanding the bill to include acts of terrorism, even if they were not targeted at Canada.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court might find such a law to be a violation of the 14th Amendment, but it will be interesting to see if legislators look to give it a try in the wake of recent revelations.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: Canada

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