(LONDON) — Shamima Begum, a London teenager who left Britain four years ago to join the Islamic State group, is to be stripped of her U.K. citizenship by the government, her family’s lawyer said Tuesday.
Attorney Tasnime Akunjee tweeted that the family is “very disappointed with the Home Office’s intention to have an order made depriving Shamima of her citizenship.”
He said the family is “considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision.”
ITV News reported that the family had received a letter from the Home Office, which oversees immigration, saying that the order revoking Begum’s British citizenship had already been made. The letter said Begum could appeal the decision.
Begum left London with two friends in 2015, when she was 15, and traveled to Syria. Now 19 and living in a refugee camp, she says she has given birth to a baby and wants to come home.
The case has reignited a debate in the U.K. about how to deal with citizens who joined IS but want to return home now that ..