Shamima Begum, who made international headlines as an “ISIS bride” in 2019 after pleading with the U.K. government to allow her to return to give birth to her son, lost her appeal Wednesday against a decision made three years ago by the U.K.’s Home Office to revoke her British nationality.
Begum, who was born in London and is of Bangladeshi origin, traveled to Syria aged 15 to join Islamic State, where she married an IS fighter and had three children, all of whom have since died. She resurfaced at the al-Roj refugee camp in northeast Syria in 2019.
Begum’s lawyers say the decision will leave her “de-facto stateless” and that she is a victim of child trafficking.
The decision could potentially become a landmark ruling, Harjap Singh Bhangal, a prominent U.K. lawyer and immigration law expert, tells TIME. “In effect, millions of British citizens whose parents have migrated from abroad before them are eligible to have their citizenship stripped if the government sees them as a national threat,” he says.
Below, what to know about the hugely controversial Begum case.
What did the Special Immigration Appeals Commission rule?
Last November, Begum’s lawyers argued in an appeal hearing that she and two school friends had been subjected to grooming and manipulation to join Islamic State—and that, in effect, she was a victim of child trafficking.
In its Wednesday ruling, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) said it had found there was a “credible suspicion” that she was a victim of trafficking to Syria. “The motive of bringing her to Syria was sexual exploitation for which, as a child, she could not give valid consent,” said the presiding judge Robert Jay. He added that various state bodies in the U.K. had breached their duties in permitting Begum to leave the country as she did, which allowed her to eventually cross the border from Turkey to Syria.
Nevertheless, the Commission rejected Begum’s appeal on the grounds that it had no power to trump the Home Secretary’s decision, even if the case was found to be in her favor. It added that several British women remain detained in refugee camps in Syria despite having British citizenship
“Reasonable people will differ as to the threat she posed in February 2019 to the national security of the United Kingdom, and as to how that threat should be balanced against all countervailing considerations,” said Jay. “However, under our constitutional settlement, these sensitive issues are for the Secretary of State to evaluate and not for the commission.”
What does SIAC’s ruling mean for Shamima Begum?
Bhangal tells TIME that the ruling effectively means that the courts think “Begum’s exclusion from the U.K. is justified” and that her chances of returning “seem bleak after this fresh ruling.”