#second class citizenship

British Muslims have had their citizenship reduced to “second-class” status as a result of recently extended powers to strip people of their nationality, a thinktank has claimed.

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) says the targets of such powers are almost exclusively Muslims, mostly of south Asian heritage, embedding discrimination and creating a lesser form of citizenship.

The IRR’s report was published on Sunday amid renewed controversy over the case of Shamima Begum, who was smuggled into the hands of Islamic State aged 15, and in the wake of the Nationality and Borders Act – that allowed citizenship to be stripped without notifying the subject, coming on to the statute books.

Frances Webber, IRR vice-chair and report author, wrote: “The message sent by the legislation on deprivation of citizenship since 2002 and its implementation largely against British Muslims of south Asian heritage is that, despite their passports, these people are not and can never be ‘true’ citizens, in the same way that ‘natives’ are.

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Have you checked your ID privilege lately? Because in recent days I’ve observed with unprecedented clarity that it’s becoming a phenomenon in Britain. There are two types of citizen in this country: those who feel compelled to carry proof that their presence is legal. And those secure enough, entitled even, to barely give it a thought.

Until recently, I have always been in the second category. It’s cultural. ID cards are totally un-British – as I discovered when I first started writing about civil liberties for the Guardian 15 years ago. Government proposals to introduce them back then stirred a deep well of Magna Carta-philia and a libertarian distrust of positive law. British people don’t expect to have to prove their identity unless collecting a parcel or checking in for a flight.

Unless you are a visible minority, that is. For us, that entitlement is gradually being eroded. Being asked where we are from, “Go home” vans, the Windrush scandal. The escalation from rhetorical othering, to the actual, violent deportation of people perfectly entitled to be here, shook Britain’s black community to our core.

Last week, a new level of escalation. A 17-year-old boy from Kent ran away from a hospital. He is British, black and non-verbal, and was being treated for his mental health. Reportedly in a state of distress, having attempted to travel to Manchester and back with no money, phone, or – by the time he returned – even any shoes, he was arrested by British Transport Police for not having a train ticket.

So far this is a story about the carceral state, straight from the abolitionist textbooks. The Black Lives Matter movement familiarised everyone with what happens when a vulnerable black person is met not with support, solutions, or even basic compassion, but with the brutality of law enforcement and criminalisation. Tragically, we are familiar with their names in many cases because it ended in their death – Sean Rigg, Mzee Mohammed, Leon Briggs, Kingsley Burrell.

What British Transport Police did in this case, however, offers a sinister new twist. Claiming to have “interviewed” this non-verbal young person, its officers concluded that he was a Nigerian who had come to the country illegally. Since he allegedly failed to give satisfactory or reliable answers (did I mention that he was non-verbal?) the authorities began steps – according to paperwork he was later found carrying – for his “imminent” deportation.