Emma DeSouza and her husband, Jake. Image: Emma DeSouza Emma DeSouza and her husband, Jake. Image: Emma DeSouza A WOMAN FROM Northern Ireland who is caught up in a legal battle with the UK government over whether she is a British or Irish citizen has said that she fears the consequences if the Home Office wins the court case.
As she was classed as a British citizen, but is an Irish passport holder, the UK government defined her as having dual citizenship, and so her husband cannot apply for an EEA card and she cannot go through the UK immigration system as an EU national. On this basis, her husband’s application for a residence card was refused.
“The great thing [about this court hearing] is that the Home Office has to go public with their arguments,” she told TheJournal.ie ahead of today’s case. In its original refusal letter to Jake DeSouza, the Home Office said that “the Good Friday Agreement recognised the right of the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and to be accepted as Irish or British or both. British nationality law defines which persons with a connection to Northern Ireland are British citizens, and Irish legislation specifies which people are Irish nationals.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has previously said that the “UK has got it wrong in the DeSouza case” and that “the Good Friday Agreement is explicit on this matter – the people of Northern Ireland are entitled to be British or Irish or both.”
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