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In this post we are going to look at the requirements for children to obtain permission to enter and stay in the UK under Appendix FM. Appendix FM (for “family members”) sets out the rules for immigrants who want to come and join loved ones in the UK. Before we...

26th September 2025
BY Nick Nason

In Kaya v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UKSIAC SV/01/2024 the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) upheld the Home Office’s decision refusing to issue a visit visa to a Turkish national on the basis that his presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good....

25th September 2025
BY Iain Halliday

The Upper Tribunal has concluded that a person in the UK on a Health Care Worker visa but encountered working at a restaurant was not undertaking supplementary employment and so his leave was lawfully cancelled. The case is R (Hridoy) v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2024-LON-002819. The...

24th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!  I had expected to start last week’s newsletter with the news that the first removals to France had taken place, forgetting that – as the BBC rather memorably put it last week “that the Home Office regularly snatches defeat from the jaws of...

23rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Last week the Home Secretary expressed outrage at “vexatious, last minute claims” made by people seeking to prevent their removal to France. She is hardly the first Home Secretary to do so. These statements do not reflect the reality of the process, which has been designed by the Home Office...

23rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Wesley Gryk Solicitors LLP is a top-ranked specialist firm in UK immigration and nationality law, consistently recognised by The Legal 500, Chambers and Partners, and The Times Best Law Firms. We are known for our commitment to excellence, empathy, and life-changing legal work. We are seeking a solicitor to join...

23rd September 2025
BY Free Movement

Appendix Family Reunion (Sponsors with Protection) was closed to new applications on 4 September 2025. This does not mean that refugees can no longer bring their family members to the UK, but it does make it much more difficult. Below I take a look at some of the options and...

22nd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A child born abroad to British citizen parents who were themselves born abroad is not automatically British at birth. While this might be no shock to immigration lawyers, occasionally the story of a family finding out their child is not British in these circumstances will make headlines. One such example...

19th September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

The modern slavery statutory guidance has been amended yesterday, following a grant of interim relief temporarily halting one man’s removal to France this week. Background The Home Office’s attempts to return people to France under the new treaty this week can at best be described as “shambolic”. This was entirely...

18th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has allowed a judicial review brought by a Palestinian man after a nightmare scenario where the Home Office withdrew the refusal of his asylum claim the day before his appeal hearing, indicating that refugee status would be granted, only to later to resile from that position following...

17th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!  Last week saw further tragedy in the Channel with two separate incidents resulting in deaths. On Tuesday a woman died and a day later three people, including two children, died in an attempt to reach the UK. It is worth remembering that unaccompanied children are excluded from the new UK-France agreement. They cannot...

16th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a newly reported Hamid decision of the Upper Tribunal, a barrister has been referred to the Bar Standards Board for investigation following his use of a false citation generated by ChatGPT. The case is MS v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Professional Conduct: AI Generated Documents) Bangladesh...

16th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The government has proposed changes to the early removal scheme for foreign national offenders in what is possibly the most significant overhaul to the deportation process since the changes made in the wake of the foreign prisoner ‘scandal’ in 2006. It comes hot on the heels of the expansion of the...

15th September 2025
BY Nick Nason

Immigration law is constantly changing and the Home Office updates its guidance documents accordingly. Sometimes you will need to look at an older version of the guidance that applied at a certain time but it is no longer on GOV.UK as it has been replaced with the new version. When...

12th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The international sportsperson route was introduced in 2021 for elite and internationally established sportspeople and sports coaches to enter the UK. It replaced the previous system which involved applying under the now abolished Appendix T5 (Temporary Worker) Creative or Sporting Worker and Appendix T2 Sportsperson routes. The immigration rules for...

11th September 2025
BY Glyn Lloyd

This is a new role. The Head of Casework will be the second most senior member of the Legal Team, working collaboratively with the Legal Director. They combine high-quality immigration representation with departmental management responsibilities, including supervision of legal staff, safeguarding, compliance, and billing. Under the oversight and direction of...

11th September 2025
BY Free Movement

The Home Office can impose a mandatory refusal period, also known as a re-entry ban, on people who have previously breached immigration law or used deception in their application for leave. Refusal periods can last one year, two years, five years or ten years. Generally speaking, and except for some...

10th September 2025
BY Nath Gbikpi

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!  Personally I feel that Grant Shapps’ record as the best Home Secretary we have had in the past 15+ years remains intact. What a legacy though – in her last week in the job, Yvette Cooper closed the refugee family reunion route. A...

9th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is at committee stage in the House of Lords. The Bill as first introduced has several government amendments made as it completes its passage through Parliament, and so I have detailed those below. I look only at those put forward by the government...

9th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Last weekend’s reshuffle saw Yvette Cooper replaced as Home Secretary by Shabana Mahmood, who was previously the Lord Chancellor. In addition, Angela Eagle, previously the Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum, and Seema Malhotra, previously the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Citizenship, have both been moved...

8th September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

Let’s face it, August was a rough one and hopefully most of you managed to escape it for a summer holiday at some point, in which case you definitely need Sonia and Barry to help catch you up! The UK announced its new arrangements to return people arriving across the...

8th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Below we take a look at what can be done where a sponsor wants to bring their spouse or partner to the UK but is unable to meet the financial or other requirements of Appendix FM. It will also be helpful to read this post by Barry O’Leary looking at...

5th September 2025
BY Gabriella Bettiga

As trailed earlier in the week, the refugee family reunion route will be “suspended” as of 3pm today as set out in the statement of changes just published. The explanatory memorandum describes this as “introducing a temporary pause to Appendix Family Reunion (Sponsors with Protection), as we undertake a full...

4th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

If you’ve been trying to keep up with the UK’s ever-shifting work visa landscape, you’re not alone. Over the years, the government’s method of defining which jobs are in shortage has gone through quite the transformation—from the original Shortage Occupation List to the newer Immigration Salary List and now the...

4th September 2025
BY Pip Hague

Update: this route is currently suspended and new applications cannot be made. Family reunion applications submitted before 3pm tomorrow, including those currently under appeal, will continue to be assessed under these rules. This post is intended for refugees (including those with humanitarian protection), their families and their friends trying to...

3rd September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

The National Audit Office has published a report on the Afghanistan Response Route which was set up following the government’s data leak (for background you can read our initial write up as well as this newsletter). The report looks at the key events and decisions which led to the creation...

3rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has overturned the grant of interim relief in the case of the hotel in Epping where the council sought, and at first obtained, an order for the people being accommodated in the hotel to be moved out by 12 September 2025. The Home Secretary succeeded in...

3rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!  Would it even be a music festival without at least one Home Office related line up change? Anyway, this newsletter was written on Wednesday last week because I am currently making my way home to a hot shower, here’s hoping that the end...

2nd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A “returning resident” is a resident of the United Kingdom with settled status who returns to the country after a lengthy absence abroad. Ordinarily, when a person refers to “returning residents” they might be talking about a temporary resident who leaves for a short time, for example on holiday or...

2nd September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

The Home Secretary has been ordered to provide asylum accommodation to a man with mental health needs who has continued to be held in immigration detention for 15 weeks after he was first granted conditional bail by the First-tier Tribunal. The High Court also granted permission for judicial review on...

1st September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small...

29th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In this article we look at how foreign Esports (competitive video gaming) competitors can use the visitor route to participate in UK competitions and what the rules say about earning prize money. We also look at options for gamers looking to apply their trade in the UK on a long-term...

28th August 2025
BY Jack Freeland

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!  A lot has happened in the last week. I am going to focus on statistics because there are some important omissions which are really key to everything else that is going on. In 2022/23 72% of Home Office decisions were passing their own...

27th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

In this briefing we will take a look at what is really going on with the main features of the contemporary asylum system: arrivals, the backlog, detention, removal and resettlement. The focus is on what caused the backlog and what consequences will flow from the large number of decisions being...

27th August 2025
BY Colin Yeo

This is a detailed explainer of the process for people in France to apply to come to the UK under the new UK/European Applicant Transfer Scheme as set out in Appendix UK/European Applicant Transfer Scheme and version 1 of the guidance “UK/European Applicant Transfer Scheme” dated 7 August 2025. This...

26th August 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Bill Gates once said that your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. If the same applies to the Home Office staff who have the unenviable job of fielding complaints about their colleagues from irate migrants and their lawyers, their enlightenment must rival that of any Renaissance polymath....

22nd August 2025
BY Alex Piletska
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