The Court of Appeal has held that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) was entitled to decide that it would not be unjust to refuse to allow a woman in a refugee camp in Syria to lodge a late appeal against the Home Office’s decision depriving her of her British...
Immigration Advisor IAA (Level 1 to 3) or Practising Solicitor with IAAS accreditation About us: The Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL), is a not-for-profit organisation and one of the largest immigration and asylum advice charities in the UK, supporting refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants to...
This week marked ten years since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force. The trafficking statistics for October to December 2024 have been published, meaning we now have a full year of data for 2024. In the statistics before these, for July to September 2024, I noted that positive...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published the report on “An inspection of the Border Force operation to deter and detect clandestine entrants“. The inspection took place between August and November 2024. In his 2018 inspection the chief inspector found that no fines had been given to...
“Although I have considerable sympathy for Mr Tomlinson, we are unable to wind back the clock so as to put right the historic injustice”. This quote perfectly summarises the bittersweet victory for the appellant in the recent Court of Appeal case of R (Tomlinson) v Secretary of State for the...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! On Tuesday last week the Home Affairs Select Committee heard oral evidence for their inquiry into asylum accommodation from witnesses including David Bolt, the interim Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (for a little while longer at least). The written evidence submitted to the inquiry has...
Following a consultation that took place in 2023, some important changes are being made to eVisas via the Immigration (Biometric Information etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 which were made yesterday and come into force on Thursday 27 March 2025 (although not all powers will be used from then). The explanatory memorandum...
In a decision on asylum support last year, the judge invited the Home Secretary to apply for judicial review of the tribunal so that guidance could be provided to asylum support judges on jurisdiction in implicit withdrawal cases (i.e. where the Home Office has deemed an asylum claim withdrawn). The...
The Home Secretary has been only partially successful in the Court of Appeal in relation to Medical Justice’s challenge to the introduction of a policy allowing caseworkers to refer medical evidence for a second opinion from the Home Office’s medical staff where they believed that standards were not being met....
The Upper Tribunal has held that the Home Secretary has an implied power to correct inadvertent errors, following a judicial review brought by a man whose grant of leave erroneously referred to his being granted settlement instead of limited leave. The case is R (YC) v Secretary of State for...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report “An inspection of the Home Office’s management of fee waiver applications (August 2024 – November 2024)” has been published, and as always there are various interesting bits such as what on earth was going on with those tokens last year and...
The government announced increases to some Home Office fees, including for electronic travel authorisation, skilled worker and naturalisation applications, earlier this year. It has now been confirmed that these and other increases, including to visitor, indefinite leave to remain and Appendix FM applications, will come into effect on 9 April...
The Court of Appeal confirmed in Prestwick Care Ltd & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 184 that the Home Office is not under a duty to carry out an assessment of the impact of sponsor licence revocation. The...
The Upper Tribunal has dismissed a claim for damages for breach of article 8 ECHR following on from the Home Secretary’s failure to grant the applicant discretionary leave as a victim of trafficking. The case is R (on the application of KM (Nigeria)) v Secretary of State for the Home...
Three individual claimants have succeeded in a judicial review claiming that they had been unlawfully accommodated at the former RAF base in Wethersfield. The court also held that the Home Office had unlawfully breached the Public Sector Equality Duty. The case is TG & Ors v Secretary of State for...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Committee stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continued last week, and the two amendments that had been put forward to reverse the recent changes to the good character guidance were debated on Thursday. Pete Wishart MP put it well when...
The Home Secretary has succeeded in an appeal where she argued that those with deportation orders or proceedings were lawfully excluded from a concession allowing certain victims of trafficking to be considered for discretionary leave under the more favourable provisions in place before 30 January 2023. The case is Secretary...
Job title: Senior Legal Education Officer Location: Right to Remain Office, Bethnal Green, London. Salary: £46,000 – 48,000 (inclusive of London weighting) per annum FTE, pro-rated, depending on the skills and experience. Hours: Full time or 0.8 FTE (28 hours per week) Contract: Permanent, 6 month probationary period Reporting to:...
The Upper Tribunal has dismissed a challenge to a refusal of further leave under Appendix Representative of an Overseas Business on the grounds that overseas ownership of the UK based subsidiary is required from incorporation and not just at the point of application, and that the Home Secretary was entitled...
Ahead of the government’s (apparently fairly imminent now) Immigration White Paper, the National Audit Office has published a report looking at how the Home Office manages the Skilled Worker route. In particular, they looked at whether the Home Office has an effective approach to adjusting the entry requirements to respond...
Despite the expansion of the Legal Services Act in 2022 to allow for pro bono costs to be awarded in tribunals, many legal professionals remain unaware of the scheme. Pro bono costs orders are an untapped resource within the legal profession, with unfulfilled potential to help close the funding gap...
Under the EU Settlement Scheme, an EU/EEA/Swiss citizen or their family members, or in some cases former family members, are either granted pre-settled status for five years (as limited leave) or settled status as permanent residence (as indefinite leave). In this article we’ll refer to EU/EEA/Swiss citizens as EU citizens....
Hot on the heels of the latest immigration and asylum statistics, we now have the tribunals’ figures for October to December 2024 and can see that the First-tier Tribunal’s asylum appeal backlog has increased from 34,234 outstanding cases at the end of September 2024 to 41,987 cases by the end...
A claimant seeking compensation under the Windrush Compensation Scheme after being denied entry to the UK and removed from the UK in July 1999 will have his application reconsidered after the High Court quashed the Home Office’s refusal. The case is R (Lee) v Secretary of State for the Home...
The latest statement of changes to the immigration rules has been published, accompanied by an explanatory memorandum and a ministerial statement. A visa regime has been imposed on Trinidad and Tobago with immediate effect, I am pretty sure you can guess why. Details on that and many of the other...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! There were reports of widespread issues with eVisas last week as accounts again seemed to be linked to the wrong identities in yet another data breach. It remains unclear what is causing these issues or when and how it is expected to be resolved. In the meantime, it was...
Claiming asylum is an important human right backed by the United Nations Refugee Convention and recognised by countries around the world. In order to make this right a reality in practice, countries like the UK have set up systems by which people must apply for asylum. In this way, asylum...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the refusal of an EEA residence card as an extended family member where further education was considered not to be an essential living need in circumstances where the appellant had applied for a working holiday maker visa before instead continuing with...
The February podcast is here! We kick off with Sonia briefly summarising the recently published statistics for 2024. There was then a lot to cover on asylum with several case updates and of course the recent Home Office changes to the good character requirements. Barry was thrilled to be able...
This article explains how to make a successful change of conditions application where a person needs to lift the no recourse to public funds restriction (NRPF) from their grant of leave. This article is written for applicants as well as for the lawyers and advisors who may be assisting in...
The High Court has quashed a decision by the Home Office to refuse a trafficking claim on the grounds that the person had been kidnapped, which the decision maker said could not meet the trafficking definition. The case is R (AAM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025]...
The Ministry of Justice has announced increases to court and tribunal fees, to take effect for applications made on or after 1 April 2025. I have pulled out the ones most applicable to immigration and asylum work below, but do check the full list if you are making an application...
Many UK immigration categories impose a requirement that the visa holder must not be outside the UK for more than 180 days in any 12-month period — that is, if the person wants to apply for indefinite leave to remain. The good news is that this rule doesn’t apply to...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Committee stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continues this week. An amendment has been proposed by the SNP’s Pete Wishart (on page 8), which would ensure that illegal entry to the UK is ignored when considering the good character requirement in...
