JCWI is running a new fundraising campaing to create a series of plaques in the style of the blue national heritage ones to celebrate the contribution of refugees to our society over time. …In fact refugees have historically been huge contributors to innovation, industry and culture around the world. Refugee...
Excellent report by Catrin Nye into unlawful immigration detention and the compensation paid to those wrongfulyl detained. Good to see Conservative MP Tim Loughton speaking out on the wastefulness of the process, the pointlessness of detaining then releasing, as occurs in 60% of cases, and referencing the recent Shaw Review....
Michael Gove yesterday claimed amongst other things that: Inside the EU we have to accept that anyone with an EU passport – even if they have a criminal record – can breeze into this country. That will include countries in the pipeline to join the EU – Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro,...
The Garden Court Chambers Immigration Team wishes to recruit two outstanding advocates who can demonstrate a strong commitment to civil liberties. We expect to recruit individuals with up to three years post qualification experience. Candidates must be immigration specialists committed to practising within the principles and ethos of chambers. The...
The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal against the residence test for legal aid, overturning the Court of Appeal judgment in favour of the Home Office. The basis for the Supreme Court’s decision is that the Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling at that time, did not have the legal power to...
In a VERY interesting paper, Robert Thomas of the University of Manchester analyses the statistics on judicial review cases since they were transferred from the Administrative Court to the Upper Tribunal. He finds that the number and proportion of claims certified as “totally without merit” has increased considerably and so...
Case on calculating annual salary under Tier 2 when the applicant is paid weekly: The effect of paragraph 14 of Appendix J to the Immigration Rules is that other than where an applicant has contracted weekly hours or is paid an hourly rate, the appropriate salary for the purposes of...
If you are planning to return from the continent with a little illicit saucisson and brie, then beware of the dogs at Manchester Airport. According to David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, the Border Force detector dogs at Manchester ‘were making multiple detections of small amounts...
It is the immigration decision that triggers the right of appeal, not the notice of decision: Singh (No immigration decision – jurisdiction)[2013] UKUT 440 (IAC) is authority for proposition that the First-tier Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear an appeal only where there has been an immigration decision. It is not...
1. The question whether the appellant “is a persistent offender” is a question of mixed fact and law and falls to be determined by the Tribunal as at the date of the hearing before it. 2. The phrase “persistent offender” in s.117D(2)(c) of the 2002 Act must mean the same...
A student was for 20 days a total of £11.68 short of the required funds of £2,040, which were required to be held for 28 days continuously. In percentage terms, that would be a shortfall of 0.57%. Taking a hard line, President McCloskey holds: The de minimis principle is not...
Periods of study for a qualification below degree level, are capable of being counted as time spent studying at degree level for the purpose of paragraph 245ZX(ha), if the period of study is taught at degree level, and when the qualification itself is added to other periods of study, resulting...
The final judgment of the court in SSHD v NA Case C‑115/15 (previously NA (Pakistan) [2015] EWCA Civ 140) will come later this year, but the Advocate General Opinion released today suggests that victims of domestic violence should retain EU law rights of residence even where the EU citizen was...
In this case the Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber finds that the “past presence test” for Disability Living Allowance unlawfully discriminates against refugees and their families. The offending provision is “disapplied” by the tribunal. The same test is applied for Attendance Allowance, Personal Independence Payment and Carer’s Allowance, I understand....
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published his Inspection Plan for the next three years. It includes inspections on sham marriages, landlord immigration checks, NHS charging, exit checks and litigation (including Home Office Presenting Officers) in the first year. Source: The Chief Inspector releases his Inspection Plan for...
The Home Office has issued a new updated version of its policy on section 3C and 3D leave: Leave extended by section 3C (and leave extended by section 3D in transitional cases). Section 3C and 3D leave is an automatic type of leave created by an amendment to the Immigration...
The President has issued an important determination on the correct approach to multiple applications and appeals from family members, specifically a parent or parents and a child or children with 7 years of residence. The case is PD and Others (Article 8 : conjoined family claims) Sri Lanka [2016] UKUT...
David Bolt, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, recently published a new report into the effectiveness of services that the Home Office outsources to private contractors, finding that inefficiency and lack of communication contribute to a waste of resources and time. The full report is available here: An Inspection...
Someone recently asked me whether time spent under EU law can count towards a 10 year long residence application so I thought I would flag up the answer for others as well. In short, “yes”. I would have thought there would be relatively few people who find themselves in this...
A High Court judge has awarded the family member of an EU national a total of £136,048 in damages. The award consists of £76,578 for false imprisonment and £59,470 for breach of EU law. The Home Office is also criticised for having made “inaccurate and misleading” submissions to previous judges...
Following the last post on FM on this, Cranston J heard argument from the Claimants on 25 and 26 February 2016 but, having done so, adjourned the hearing, on the application of the Home Office, on the grounds that the SSHD was not ready to proceed. A case management hearing...
A recent report by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, revealed that the management of curtailment decisions in Tier 4 cases is inconsistent and the Home Office is unable to deal with the thousands of curtailment cases and Sponsors notifications it receives every month. You can see the...
Still no sign of the full judgment being available, just this summary and this press release from the solicitor. Summary of the summary: 8. Ultimately, the Tribunal has subjected all of the evidence to detailed and careful scrutiny. Having done so, it concludes that the Secretary of State has not...
The Government has confirmed that the Immigration Skills Charge will be set at £1,000 per year per migrant worker sponsored under Tier 2 of the Points Based System. A lower rate will apply for small businesses and charities. On 21 March 2016 in a House of Lords debate on the...
I recently made a partially successful Freedom of Information request on waiting times for different types of EEA residence documents. The information for the whole of 2015 taken as an average was released but not more recent information on current waiting times in 2016. The waiting times were as follows:...
I have belatedly updated my Surinder Singh ebook, which is now available for purchase or to be downloaded by previous customers who created a user account at the time of purchase. There are some quite significant changes and additions. I no longer recommend to clients that they should use the...
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights today published a Memorandum addressed to the UK Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, in which he condemns the use of anti migrant language and rhetoric by Ministers including David Cameron and Theresa May, criticises discriminatory and disproportionate measures against migrants and expresses disappointment...
Very upsetting news on Saturday from the French lawyers in the migrant camp in Calais. You can donate here to show solidarité. Today, March 17th 2016, just prior to 6 p.m., an arson attack was committed against the wooden cabin occupied by the Calais Appeal Legal Centre. This wooden cabin,...
An interesting set of draft Council conclusions on convergence in asylum decision practices obtained by Statewatch sets out a roadmap towards greater consistency in asylum decision making. There is a lot of work to do on this front, as shown by IRIN in their excellent and infographic heavy piece Playing...
In an interesting but almost impenetrable judgment, the Court of Justice of the European Union gives some guidance on procedural protections available to those bringing challenges to EU law decisions which adversely affect them. The case is Benalla v Belgium C‑161/15. The point that arose was a fairly obscure one....
Big increase to fees for immigration judicial review applications from 21 March 2016. See paragraph 4 of the Civil Proceedings, Family Proceedings and Upper Tribunal Fees (Amendment) Order 2016: (a) for the entry corresponding to fee 2.1 (application on notice where no other fee is specified) for “£80” substitute “£255”;...
Just a quick catch up post to alert readers to the Government’s response to the damning report by James Ewins, published on 17 December 2015, and developments since then. The review concluded that the Coalition Government’s amendments to the Immigration Rules on overseas domestic workers exposed them to enhanced risk...
