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Nor did she know Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) officials had recently investigated her family. The student claims she wasn’t aware her citizenship had been revoked until her father informed her of the fact late last year, after the decision was made. She is now in litigation with the federal government to have her citizenship restored.

“I was in shock,” the woman says in an affidavit filed in Federal Court. “I could not understand how this could happen, and why (IRCC) did not allow me to make representations on my own behalf.”

Her Ottawa-based lawyer provided the National Post with documents related to the case on condition the student not be identified by name. “My client is a young woman who is under significant psychological distress,” explains the lawyer, Arghavan Gerami.

I could not understand how this could happen, and why (IRCC) did not allow me to make representations on my own behalf

Gerami says citizenship revocation laws as they are written and enforced are unfair, adding that the revocation process and order made against her client was “arbitrary and disproportionate.”

It’s one of several cases the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers brought to public attention at a press conference in Ottawa last week. The two groups have filed their own constitutional challenge in Federal Court, arguing that a “revocation regime” created by Bill C-24 — which became law in 2014 — can have a person stripped of their legal status without so much as a hearing.

IRCC officials did not respond to written questions by press time Thursday. But earlier this week, Canada’s immigration minister, John McCallum, told reporters he would consider a moratorium on revoking citizenships without hearings.