The campaigner Emma DeSouza is to withdraw her legal challenge to the British government’s immigration policy in Northern Ireland after a significant concession by the British Home Office last week effectively resolved her case.
“Legally, with this concession from the Home Office, we regrettably cannot proceed, because in essence, we have won,” she said.
All Irish and British citizens born in Northern Ireland will now be treated as EU citizens for immigration purposes until June 2021.
Ms DeSouza, from Magherafelt, Co Derry, had fought a lengthy immigration battle to allow her US-born husband, Jake, to stay in Northern Ireland, without compromising her right to identify as an Irish citizen.
However, the Home Office had rejected the couple’s application on the basis that Ms DeSouza was British, and requested that she either apply for residency for her husband as a British citizen or renounce her British citizenship and apply as an Irish citizen.
She challenged that decision, stating that she had never held a British passport and the Belfast Agreement allowed her to identify as Irish, British or both.
The Home Office said the change “delivers on the commitment the UK government made in the New Decade, New Approach agreement in January 2020 which restored the power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland.”
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Ms DeSouza said the changes “forced through by our case will now allow Jake to remain in the United Kingdom on the basis of my Irish citizenship and require the Home Office to respect my right under the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement to be accepted as Irish.”
These were, she said, “the terms which set the foundation of our legal complaint, and the grounds which we were forced to argue in court time and again until the British government finally conceded that we were right all along.
“Therefore we have been left with no other option but to withdraw our application to appeal to the Court of Appeal.”
However she said that the changes to immigration rule, while “enormously welcomed and beneficial to many”, did not fully address the issues highlighted by their case and there was still no legal basis in UK domestic law for the citizenship and identity provisions of the Belfast Agreement.
“We had hoped our legal challenge could help right that wrong and force the British government to amend statute in line with its international obligations,” she said.
However Ms DeSouza said she and her husband would continue to campaign outside of the judicial system.
Sinn Féin senator Niall Ó Donnghaile, who was among those who supported the DeSouzas, said concerns remained around citizenship issues and the time-limited nature of the resolution.
“While the win will apply for some time, it does quite conveniently in some ways remove it from the judicial process,” he said.
“I think there a strong argument to be made for a very clear legal and legislative resolution to this, which remains the big deficit.”
