Canada moves to revoke citizenship of Tahawwur Rana over alleged residency fraud

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Tahawwur Rana is escorted to court in New Delhi, India, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Dinesh Joshi). Dinesh Joshi).

Tahawwur Rana Hussain obtained Canadian citizenship by claiming he lived in Ottawa when the RCMP alleged he was actually residing at this Chicago home. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty). Paul Beaty).

Chigaco grocery store owned by Tahawwur Rana Hussain, who allegedly obtained Canadian citizenship by falsely claiming he lived in Canada. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty). Paul Beaty).

India’s National Investigative Agency with Tahawwur Rana Hussain following his extraditiom from the U.S. NIA globalnews.ca

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The Canadian government is seeking to revoke the citizenship of Tahawwur Rana Hussain, a Pakistan-born businessman linked by Indian prosecutors to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, on the grounds that he misrepresented his residence when he became a Canadian citizen, Global News reports. Immigration officials told him they intend to strip the citizenship he acquired in 2001, arguing that his application claimed he lived in Ottawa and Toronto with only a six-day absence, while an RCMP investigation concluded he spent most of that period in Chicago.

The case is being sent to Canada’s Federal Court, which decides whether citizenship was obtained by “false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances,” according to the government letter cited by Global News. Rana’s lawyer has appealed, arguing the process was unfair and violated his rights; at a recent hearing, government lawyers asked for permission to withhold sensitive national security information from the case.

The legal theory matters because it avoids the politically radioactive route Canada abandoned a decade ago. Under Stephen Harper, Ottawa passed a law allowing revocation for convicted terrorists who held another citizenship. The Liberals campaigned in 2015 against what they called “two-tier” citizenship, repealed the law after taking power, and restored citizenship to more than a dozen people previously stripped of it, Global News writes. Since then, the state has continued to pursue revocation in terrorism-adjacent cases, but by re-litigating the original paperwork instead of the later conduct.

That choice shifts the battleground from criminal proof to administrative history. It also changes the incentives inside government: if revocation is framed as an integrity measure, officials can treat citizenship like a compliance status—something that can be reopened years later if an old form can be attacked. In Rana’s case, the alleged deception is not about ideology or violence but about days spent outside Canada. The practical effect is similar: citizenship becomes conditional in retrospect, but the trigger is an evidentiary dispute about residence rather than a conviction for terrorism.

Global News notes that the department does not track how many revocations occur, and the outlet found only three such decisions in the past decade. Scarcity can cut two ways: it can indicate restraint, or it can indicate that revocation is used selectively for high-profile cases where the state expects public approval and institutional deference.

Rana is currently in India awaiting trial, and Canada’s government is asking a court at home to revisit where he slept in 2000.