AUSTRALIANS WITH ISIL TIES COULD LOSE CITIZENSHIP

CANBERRA — Australia plans to strip citizenship from Australian-born children of immigrants who become ISIL fighters in its crackdown on homegrown jihadis, a minister said on Thursday. The government wants to change the Citizenship Act to make fighting for ISIL a reason for losing citizenship, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said. The government also wants to adopt the British model by revoking the citizenship of extremists who are Australian-born children of immigrants or an immigrant, forcing them to take up citizenship in the birth country of their parents, or parent, Dutton said. Dual nationals could also lose their Australian citizenship, while Australians without claim to another nationality could not. “The principle for us, which is very important, is that we don’t render people stateless,” Dutton said. Australia can currently only revoke citizenship in cases of fraud in the citizenship application or where an Australian citizen joins the armed forces of another country to fight Australia. Because the ISIL movement is not recognized as a state, membership is not a ground for losing Australian citizenship, Dutton said. “I can hardly walk down the street without people saying, ‘Why do you let these people back into our country? They come back more radicalized,’ ” Dutton said. “They are a huge threat to Australian citizens. We should act and that’s what the government is doing,” he added. George Williams, a University of New South Wales constitutional law professor, said Parliament could probably change the law on revoking citizenship without any constitutional obstacle. But critics argue that Australia should prosecute and imprison its terrorists rather than shunt them to other countries. Many Australians charged with or suspected of terrorism crimes are the Australian-born children of parents who fled conflicts in Lebanon and Afghanistan.