A young woman who was born and raised in England has been denied re-entry to the UK over a recent change in immigration rules.
Natasha Cochrane De La Rosa, 26, holds a dual nationality and has previously been able to travel freely on her Spanish passport.
But on her return from her holiday in Amsterdam on Monday, she was not allowed to board her flight because she did not have the right paperwork to prove she was a British citizen – despite having a British birth certificate.
From February 25, a new immigration rule came into place whereby all dual nationals must use a valid British or Irish passport when entering England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
If travelling on a non-UK passport, dual-citizen travellers will need a Certificate of Entitlement and will not be eligible to apply for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) or visa.
Unaware of the changes, Ms Cochrane De La Rosa has said she is now living through a ‘nightmare’ having been forced to fly to Spain where she is now battling the Home Office for re-entry.
She said that despite being born in north London, and then going to school, working and voting there, the Home Office has left her ‘effectively stranded while trying to prove a citizenship status that I believed I had held all my life’.
‘The UK is my home in every sense – and I feel overnight they have washed their hands of me,’ the Client Success Manager told the Daily Mail.
‘There is now a blurred and frightening line between what people are told their rights are, what the law appears to say, and how they are treated in practice.
‘I feel abandoned by my own country. A system that can leave a British-born person stranded abroad, unable to return home without entering a maze of contradictory guidance and delays, is a system that deserves urgent scrutiny.’
Ms Cochrane De La Rosa added that she is at ‘high risk’ or losing her job because she is unable to return to the UK.
She added that there is a huge financial cost, living out of only a small bag from her girl’s trip to the Netherlands to suffice for what could be up to six months of legal battles while stuck in Spain.
‘I was also meant to start a medication when I got back from Amsterdam but now I’m trying to get that sent over but it’s very expensive and takes forever because of the border delays with sending packages to the EU,’ she added.
Ms Cochrane De La Rosa was forced to spend a ‘terrifying’ night alone in Amsterdam airport after she was confronted by immigration, who then organised a flight to Seville so she could stay with family in Spain.
‘If I didn’t have family in Spain, they would have left me effectively homeless in Amsterdam,’ she said. ‘Its absolutely despicable.’
She said that her ‘family are beyond stressed out, they’re scared, their terrified’ and are frantically searching online for anything that can help her get home.
She said: ‘I have a British birth certificate, payslips, HMRC documents, p45’s, provisional British license, tax returns, bank statements – the list goes on – yet the authorities have decided that overnight this no longer is applicable.
‘I have spoken to the embassy several times who can’t help because I am not logged as a British citizen anymore.
‘I have found myself shut out, displaced, and treated as though I do not belong to the country where I was born and have lived my whole life.
‘What makes this especially disturbing is that the government’s own published guidance says that someone born in the UK between 1 January 1983 and 1 October 2000 will be a British citizen if, at the time of their birth, at least one parent was a British citizen – which is my own case.
‘I was born in London in 1999. I was raised in the UK, went to school in the UK, built my life in the UK, and I have been paying taxes since my first job around 10 years ago.
‘My father is British, my mother is an EU citizen, and most of my family life is in Britain, including my three younger sisters, parents, and wider family network.’
Ms Cochrane De La Rosa is one of 1.26million dual nationals currently living in the UK, according to the 2021 census.
She is also not the only person to have faced a similar issue returning to the UK after these new rules coming in to effect.
It was reported a 9-year-old boy was not allowed re-entry to the UK this month after he had gone on a holiday with his family to Italy.
David Toropu had been born and raised in Cardiff but authorities said there was no record of his UK residency since he was travelling on a Romanian passport, like his parents who have settled status to live in the UK.
Ms Cochrane De La Rosa said: ‘I was completely unaware, no one I know knew about this rule change before.
‘While I know I have a level of responsibility to be aware of entry and exit laws, there was very little to flag this to me beforehand – there was nothing on the airline website when booking tickets, I wasn’t asked about it before boarding.
‘And there will be many more dual nationals in the UK who have no idea that this could happen to them.’
She explained that one of her sisters was born in Spain who applied for settled status in 2021 and when Ms Cochrane De La Rosa had gone with her to do the same, she was told she did not need to apply because she would have natural citizenship thanks to being born in the UK.
‘Its a paradox – before, I was too British to get the paperwork, and now I’m not British enough.
‘It’s criminal what they are doing, it’s terrifying to feel like I don’t belong where you have your roots.
‘This system needs to be scrutinised – it is designed so poorly, and all comes down to whether a computer says no or not.
‘I have lived and paid for this country my whole life and now don’t hit a certain criteria, leaving me in some loophole without any help.’
After speaking with embassies and immigration lawyers she said her options are to wait three to six weeks as she tries to get an English passport which has a chance of being rejected on account of her parents being unmarried at her birth, per her legal advice.
The alternative is to apply for settlement, which takes three to six months, and still has a chance of being rejected on the basis of her parent’s then-marital status, according to her lawyer.
Opting for an ETA, an electronic tourist visa for tourists, would equally be counterintuitive, as it suggests she therefore concedes to not being a British citizen.
Ms Cochrane De La Rosa had also applied for emergency travel documentation but this was denied on the basis her case did not meet the threshold requirements.
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
