October 11, 2025
A three-year-old girl from Birmingham has been told she cannot have a British passport. Zharia-Rae was born in the United Kingdom in 2022. Her mother, Tracy Ann Dunkley, says the Home Office has refused to recognise her daughter as a British citizen and issue her a British passport because she was born in the UK.
Zharia-Rae is not a British citizen—because she was born in the UK. But had she been born in Anguilla where her mother grew up, she would be a British citizen. Yes, you read that correctly.
Under British nationality law, a child born in any of the British Overseas Territories (BOT) is a British citizen at birth if at least one parent is deemed “settled” in that territory. Tracy Ann has been settled in Anguilla since 2014 and became a British Overseas Territories Citizen by naturalisation in 2018—a year after Hurricane Irma devastated the island. She first came to the UK in 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Make it make sense,” says Euen Herbert-Small, a Windrush campaigner and British nationality researcher of nearly two decades.
“British nationality laws have been hostile and discriminate since the 1960's. Changes over the past 20 years have only deepened the absurdity, as the UK government struggles to make them more inclusive without major reforms.”
The contradictions don’t end there. Zharia-Rae’s five-year-old brother—born in the UK two years before her in 2020, to the same parents—holds a British passport and is not experiencing the issues plauging his younger sister.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Herbert-Small continues. “Both children have the same mother and father. How could the child born before have something the child born after is being denied?”
Minister of State for Citizenship and Migration - Mike Tapp MP
This case isn’t just confusing—it’s revealing. Earlier this year, Herbert-Small met with the Minister for Citizenship to raise these exact concerns. The treatment of families from the Overseas Territories by His Majesty’s Passport Office is riddled with inconsistency.
“It’s like a raffle,” he says. “Caseworkers arrive at different decisions—it's the luck of the draw, and the underlying issue is clear: staff are not properly trained.”
Meanwhile, Tracy Ann continues to receive letters from the NHS demanding payment for her daughter’s care, a horror that echoes the Windrush Scandal. The Home Office has offered Zharia-Rae a British Overseas Territories Citizen (BOTC) passport only, which means she does not have a right to live in the UK a or access NHS care and means she is subject to immigration control.
An online petition has been started allow Zharia's voice to be heard in Parliament. This story was first reported in The Guardian. JamRadio is amplifying it because silence is complicity.
Zharia-Rae deserves better. Her mother deserves better. Britain must do better.
