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A dual BRITISH/SPANISH citizen has been stranded on the Spanish coast for an undetermined period of time, after being refused boarding by a UK airline under the new UK regulations. border rules.
Natasha Cochrane De La Rosa (26), had passed through security and passport controls at Amsterdam’s airport, on April 2.
She had dozens of flights in which she would have sat down on the plane and gotten through the gate without a problem.
It was different this time. She was shocked to learn that she would not be allowed to board the plane as she did no have the required documentation.
She stood with the plane visible, but not in reach at the bottom of the runway.
She told The Olive Press that she had no idea of what was being said.
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Cochrane De La Rosa’s missing documentation was either a British passport or an Irish digital certificate of entitlement. These documents are required by British dual citizens entering the UK after the new border control regulations were introduced on February 25, 2017.
Cochrane De La Rosa is not allowed to enter the UK if she only has her Spanish passport.
This was something she was unaware of – and she blames UK authorities for ‘not doing the job of ensuring dual nationals were informed and had enough time to actually gather the paperwork well enough’.
She said: “I feel like I have been cheated out of my home country. It feels like they’ve betrayed me.”
Cochrane De La Rosa, who was denied boarding on her flight to Spain, spent an extra day in Amsterdam after being refused boarding.
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Speaking from the Sevilla home of her mother’s childhood best friend, she told The Olive Press that she ‘is lucky to be staying with people who are like family’ to her.
However, she added that while ‘Spain is a second home, it isn’t my home, it isn’t my base or my foundation’.
Cochrane De La Rosa calls London home. She was born in Islington and educated there. Now she lives with her family in London and works at an AI firm based in that city.
Despite this, since sharing her story with the BBC she has received online backlash from individuals telling her that she does not ‘belong in the UK’, that she is ‘not welcome back into the country’ and that she ‘was never British’.
Meanwhile other commenters online have told her that ‘dual nationality should be abolished’.
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The Londoner said: “It’s disgusting that you can’t control the nationality you inherit from your parents.”
She is not in a legal situation because she is British and has all the rights to live and work in Britain.
Instead, it is an issue of documentation as she has no British passport, nor is she in possession of the documents required to obtain the £589 digital certificate of entitlement.
Her Spanish mother and British father were unmarried when Cochrane De La Rosa was born in 1999, leaving her in a legal ‘grey area’ as historical nationality laws mean her father did not automatically pass her citizenship onto her.
Cochrane De La Rosa was able to leave the UK and return on her Spanish passport before Brexit. She had been doing this for her entire life.
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She contacted the British consulate and embassy in Spain to get advice about her situation, but everyone she spoke with said she could only apply for a certificate or a passport.
This is ‘nowhere near as straightforward’ as she had hoped when she was first denied boarding as she is having to prove her mother’s legal status at the time of her birth, something which requires contacting the HMRC, banks and GPs.
The lawyer who offered to help her will be able, with the help of the mother, to prove her legal status in Britain. At the time, the EU laws that allowed free movement meant her Spanish citizenship did not require any documentation.
Once this information is gathered she will apply for a British passport which could take ‘months’.
She says, “Apparently, they are denying passports to people left, right and center because they have tightened up the rules so much. But they shouldn’t be able to deny me.”
Now as she deals with the ‘psychological damage’ of being barred from her home, all Cochrane De La Rosa can do is hope that a passport application gets approved as quickly as possible.
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She advises all British citizens without a British passport to contact their MP, read the government website, and do ‘all the due diligence before leaving the country’, even if you think you have settlement papers.
Speaking on the new border control rules, a Home Office spokesperson said that a ‘substantive’ campaign had been running since 2023 with specific guidance available for dual nationals since October 2024.
With this move, the Home Office aligns Britain’s dual national guidelines with those of Australia and the US which also require that citizens travel using their national documents.
Travel News by The Olive Press.
