Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! For the third week in a row a person has died trying to cross the Channel to get to the UK. 23 people have lost their lives attempting that journey and there is a lot of this year left. Still nothing from the new government...
The “Pending Prosecutions” section of the EU Settlement Scheme: suitability requirements version 8.0 policy, which provided for applications to be paused where there was a pending prosecution, has been held to be unlawful by the Upper Tribunal. The case is R (Lukasz Krzysztofik) v Secretary of State for the Home...
The Home Office has recently updated its guidance on the streamlined process for children’s asylum applications. This policy was initially introduced to help with the asylum backlog in 2023, the streamlined process has now been in place for almost two years and is no longer restricted to applications lodged prior...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal in a case involving a refusal based on an allegedly fraudulently obtained English language test certificate. The case is Chowdhury v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 36. The appellant entered the UK as a Tier 4 (General)...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal where it was argued that there had been procedural unfairness in a refusal of further leave to remain because the appellant had not been expressly told that his employer’s sponsor licence had been revoked. The appeal actually stemmed from refusal of a...
Appendix Statelessness replaced Part 14 of the immigration rules in January 2024. It provides a pathway for stateless people to obtain leave to remain in the UK. The application is free of charge and leads to settlement after five years. The Home Office guidance on statelessness “Permission to stay as...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The OISC rebrand to Immigration Advice Authority happened last week. The timing of all this is not amazing given the amount of time that organisations are currently wasting trying to navigate the new online portal process introduced in October. Problems reported by people...
The Home Office will soon start automatically upgrading those who hold pre-settled status under Appendix EU and are now eligible for settled status. This is being done to finish implementing the decision R (Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022]...
In Chaudhry v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 16, the Court of Appeal has confirmed the correct test to be applied in appeals against decisions of the Secretary of State to deprive a person of citizenship pursuant to section 40(3) of the British Nationality Act...
The government has announced increases to some Home Office fees. There is no set date for the increases as the draft regulations will be debated and need to be approved by both Houses. Full details of the proposed changes are set out below. It was also announced that people in...
A health care worker who was detained after being encountered by immigration enforcement while serving customers in a convenience store has been unsuccessful in a judicial review challenging the decision to cancel her leave, detain and remove her from the UK. The case is R (Andrews) v Secretary of State...
In January 2024 the immigration rules were changed and statelessness family reunion was brought into Appendix FM. The new rules make no special provision at all for the families of stateless people and treat them in the same way as any family member of any other sponsor applying under Appendix...
It’s goodbye to 2024 in this month’s podcast, with Sonia and Barry wrapping up December. They spend a bit of time discussing eVisas at the beginning of the podcast, before moving on to asylum and trafficking where issues around the quality of decision making have been raised in a couple...
The Home Office has settled the judicial review claims that seek an independent Article 3 ECHR compliant inquiry into events at Manston in 2022. The claims were brought by individuals detained at Manston in autumn 2022 when there were widespread reports and concerns around overcrowding and very poor conditions, and...
The Administrative Court has set some boundaries and given a warning of potential sanctions to the GLD regarding the withholding of charter flight details in removal cases. The case is R (Jasseh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 47 (Admin). The claimant was issued with removal...
The Home Office has published updated guidance on “Temporary permission to stay: considerations for victims of human trafficking or slavery” that applies to reconsiderations requests of permission to stay decisions under that guidance, effective from today. A comparison of the changes (using this process) shows that the changes are on...
The Immigration Advice Authority, formerly known as the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner or ‘OISC’, is a governmental body established by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to regulate the provision of immigration advice and services throughout the UK. The Immigration Advice Authority has around 60 staff. The Immigration...
The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, or OISC to everyone who knew it, is being renamed from today as the Immigration Advice Authority. A colourful new logo is also being deployed. There is not a huge amount to say about it other than it is a pain. It is...
The government published a number of significant changes to their guidance for work sponsors on 31 December 2024 and 1 January 2025. The affected guidance includes: Although several guidance documents have been updated, in many instances these updates relate to the same changes and are to reflect updates elsewhere in...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The Times reported last week that Professor Brian Bell, chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, supports people in the asylum system being allowed to work in any role after waiting six months for their claim to be decided. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise given...
The domestic worker route is a common trafficking route and below we look at how to identify whether a domestic worker is a victim of modern slavery. Domestic workers who live overseas can apply for a visa to visit the UK for up to six months with their employer as...
The Home Office has published its evaluation of the pilot scheme expanding the use of electronic monitoring of people as a condition of their immigration bail. The Home Office’s pilot monitored two groups of people on immigration bail. The first group was people who were subject to electronic monitoring and...
The Charity Worker route is for voluntary workers aged 18 or over who wish to come to the UK to do work for a recognised charitable organisation. Work must be unpaid and fieldwork which contributes directly to the achievement or advancement of the sponsor’s charitable purpose – for example, in...
The UK has two sponsored work routes for religious workers: the T2 minister of religion visa for those with a key leading role in their faith-based organisation or religious order in the UK, and the temporary religious worker visa for those who support the activities of religious institutions in the...
A mother and her severely disabled child have been successful in obtaining a mandatory order for the Home Office to provide them with suitable accommodation as part of their asylum support. The case is R (AYW & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 3291 (Admin)....
The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has dismissed an appeal challenging refusal of Schedule 10 accommodation on the grounds that the applicant did not have a bail address, which is what she was asking for by making the Schedule 10 application. The situation endorsed by the Court of Appeal...
The Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme was first announced in the March 2023 Statement of Changes to the immigration rules HC 1160. This post explains what the scheme is, who needs an electronic travel authorisation, and how to apply. The relevant immigration rules are found in Appendix Electronic Travel Authorisation and Appendix ETA...
Salary: £37,440 (pro-rata) Contract: 1 year FTC Hours: Part-time, 11.5 hours per week Deadline to apply: 12pm, Friday 24th January As life becomes ever more difficult for migrants across London, the UK and the world, Waltham Forest Migrant Action (WFMA) are committed to fighting back in solidarity and supporting our...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It may be a brand new year but the same unresolved issues from 2024 continue to roll on. The first is of course eVisas, and we are now past the point where any remaining biometric residence permits have expired. The latest update is...
In the case of A.R.E. v. Greece (application no. 15783/21) a chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has concluded that there were “strong indications” that there was an unlawful systemic practice by Greece of returning people arriving in the Evros region to Turkey. The decision related to events...
An unregulated adviser, Sebastian Valencia Jefferson, has pleaded guilty to 11 counts of providing unregulated immigration advice and services in breach of section 91 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Jefferson was the sole director and shareholder of Proxima Consulting Group Ltd and he also pleaded guilty on the...
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down judgment in two separate cases in December addressing the subject of family life between adult family members outside the “core” nuclear family of spouses, partners, parents and minor children. The court confirms that “additional elements of dependence, involving more than...
What should happen where young children are carried in a small boat to the United Kingdom and thereby separated from their parents in France? Should the children be returned to France to be reunited with their parents there? Or should the parents be admitted to the United Kingdom to be reunited...
This is a lengthy briefing providing practical advice on how to prepare a case to ensure your client has the best chance of being granted temporary permission to stay for victims of human trafficking or slavery (referred to as “VTS leave”). In this briefing I focus on grants based on...
We are running a two week sale on Free Movement annual and small group memberships for new and lapsed members from 1 to 14 January 2025. The deal is half price for the first year and then membership automatically renews at full price unless cancelled in the meantime. Small groups...
The graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who previously had a student visa to: There is no requirement to have a sponsor in order to apply under this route. The application costs £822...
In order to access legal aid, a difficult enough feat as it is, people need to provide evidence of their financial situation. For most of those in the asylum system, that means asking Migrant Help for assistance. Below I have set out some of the issues and hopefully a recent...
The Court of Appeal has upheld the Home Secretary’s decision to refuse an application made under Appendix EU by an extended family member who had not first obtained a residence document under the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2016. The case is Emambux v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...
We are looking for an experienced Immigration Solicitor to join our highly successful, creative, and dynamic immigration team. The Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre has a much-respected Immigration Team. We are a category 1 Legal Aid Immigration provider and we have considerable experience across the...
After the ban on grants of leave to those in the inadmissibility process was lifted following the change in government earlier this year, there has finally started to be some progress on deciding asylum claims. However early signs are that that the emphasis on fast decision making is coming at...
