Overview
- The three-judge SIAC panel set aside the refusal as inadequately reasoned and directed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to make a fresh decision.
- The ruling marks the second finding of unlawfulness in this case, and the Home Office says it is considering the judgment.
- The woman, known as Layla or T7, is severely disabled after a 2019 airstrike, and her British son, about 10, is her sole carer in the al‑Roj camp.
- MI5 assessed she willingly aligned with ISIS, while the Home Office Special Cases Unit urged re-entry on compassionate grounds and a former MI6 director said she was unlikely to pose an unmanageable threat.
- Key context includes her 2017 citizenship deprivation, a November 2024 order to reconsider, Yvette Cooper’s precautionary refusal last summer, Dan Jarvis’s advice to repatriate the child, and the UK’s far lower repatriation totals than France, Germany and the US (25 versus 600, 108 and 38).