A Canadian spy inside PISSI helped Shamima Begum and two other British girls get to Syria to join PISSI. The British government reportedly decided to cover this up as a favor to Canada.

The fact that the girls received assistance from a surprising source does not reduce the gravity of the crime they had already gone to great lengths to commit. However, aiding volunteers for PISSI rather than stopping them made the British and Canadian governments partially responsible for their arrival in Syria and participation in PISSI.

To punish Shamima Begum for that crime may well be justified, but exiling a citizen is not a legitimate punishment even as a sentence. To do it as an administrative decision is punishment without trial, and that is never acceptable.