Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals, previously covered here on the blog. The tone of the speech and the proposals is clear from the very first words: The vast majority of...
Passing through immigration control on my return to the UK yesterday, my wife had to restrain me from taking a photograph of one of the notices that appeared on the UK visual displays at Heathrow. She wanted to get home sooner rather than later and, on reflection, I wasn’t in...
I’m a bit behind on tribunal determination updates, but here’s the latest batch of diktats reported cases. The first is interesting, the others somewhat less so, in that they do not seem to have a great deal of broader application. The reporting of the Khalid and Others case seems downright...
The Home Office have published a new piece of research they commissioned, entitled Marriage-related migration to the UK, by Katharine Charsley, Nicholas Van Hear, Michaela Benson and Brooke Storer-Church. It makes very interesting reading for anyone interested in immigration policy and in the history of spousal immigration. There are a...
The Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) have substantially re-vamped their website. It is a huge improvement on the old one. The public-facing site is basically the same as the old one but looks better and more modern. A new facility for members of ILPA to log into a members area...
I have seen many country of origin information (COI) reports in my time, and I am generally a big fan of them, but the current UK Border Agency one on Sri Lanka is genuinely shocking. The COI unit at the Agency asked the British High Commission to make some enquiries...
In his speech on Monday addressing the long term causes behind the recent looting, David Cameron blamed the State. The communities that erupted need less help, not more, it would seem. In some classic post-Blair, verb-free rhetoric, Cameron recited some rather tired soundbites (communities, rights, responsibilities, the usual). He also...
Pierce Glynn and Stephen Knaffler QC have broadened the path (pun intended*) with SL and Westminster City Council (The Medical Foundation and Mind intervening) [2011] EWCA Civ 954. The case concerns a failed asylum seeker who, following a period as street homeless and a suicide attempt, was admitted to hospital...
R (on the application of Elayathamby) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2182 (Admin) (11 August 2011) The case concerned a challenge to the removal of a mandate refugee to the Republic of Cyprus under the Dublin Regulations II. In a judgment by Mr Justice Sales,...
The news coverage over the weekend reporting on the very recent deaths of three men in detention centres is yet another reminder that the system is, in my view, truly abhorrent. The Guardian reported that two men died from suspected heart attacks at Colnbrook near Heathrow airport. One of the...
It turns out that the muppets* at the Ministry of Justice have laid regulations that at first glance appear to forbid English and Welsh barristers and solicitors from appearing in the immigration tribunal in Scotland and Northern Ireland but which permit Scottish and Northern Irish equivalents to appear in England...
It is now possible to claim CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points through the blog, in conjunction with HJT Training. The poll a couple of weeks ago suggested that there is a reasonable level of interest in this, so we’ve put together two test tests, so to speak. The idea is...
The Chief Inspector of UKBA, John Vine, two weeks ago released a new report on the use of country information by the UK Border Agency in asylum claims. I’ve been too busy to finish writing about it, unfortunately, and am still catching up on various things that have happened recently....
The Court of Appeal has given judgment in an extremely important new case on costs, R (on the application of Bahta & Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 895 (26 July 2011). It specifically concerns the UK Border Agency and legally aided...
The UK Border Agency can be very generous and understanding when it wants to be. For some reason, Libyans currently in the UK whose visas are running out are being told that they don’t need to meet the rules required for an extension, they don’t need the right evidence and...
The Exceptional Talent route attracted a lot of attention and comment when it was announced way back in November 2010. Questions were starting to be asked about what had happened to it and whether arts and science organisations were really willing to be the determinants of who is a suitably...
Another series of edictsreported cases has been handed down by the Upper Tribunal. Official headnotes and links to the BAILII judgments are included below. I’ve also thrown in another couple of cases that slipped out since the last big batch. We have two Country Guideline cases. The first, ST, is...
Amnesty International have put together a training video for potential recruits to the private security firms contracted to carry out forced removals. It is well worth a watch. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldHz2ZJoxY&w=560&h=349] This is part of the campaign mentioned previously. Details on the Amnesty website here.
...The Government yesterday launched another consultation on restricting immigration, this time family immigration. The splash on the UKBA website is here, the Ministerial statement here, the consultation document here and the accompanying research paper, Family migration: evidence and analysis, here. The affected categories are fiancé(e)s, proposed civil partners, spouses, civil...
Free Movement is planning to launch a scheme to allow regular readers who are barristers, solicitors or OISC advisers to claim some CPD hours by reading the blog and then answering multiple choice questions. This would be done in conjunction with HJT Training, of which the editor is a director....
The minister with responsibility for legal aid, Jonathan Djanogly MP, has made a statement (reproduced below) on the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration. Once again, the emphasis is on transfer of files to new providers rather than on any attempt to salvage parts of the organisation. It looks like...
Some or all of the staff at the IAS Bristol office have put together a press release and made a bid for independence. The text is reproduced below. This follows from a mysterious comment signed off only as ‘IAS’ left on the original Law Society Gazette story yesterday asserting that...
Following the terrible news about the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration, their website has finally been updated with information for clients. The full text is reproduced below in case it changes or is taken down (complete with the wonky numbering of the original text). New information includes that IAS...
Rumours have been circulating over the weekend but the Legal Services Commission has now confirmed [UPDATES: see also BBC news story, Law Society Gazette story and comments and follow-up, Guardian story and subsequent FM post] that IAS, the largest provider of immigration advice and representation in the UK, has gone...
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to change the way that the UK Border Agency conducts forced removals. The practices used by the private security contractors who do the dirty work for the Border Agency was highlighted earlier this year by the tragic death of Jimmy Mubenga. Follow this link...
HM Inspectorate of Prisons yesterday published two reports based on unannounced inspections of the short term immigration holding facilities at Heathrow Terminals 3 and 4 (Terminal 3 report here and Terminal 4 report here). The reports are broadly positive and on the whole the detention facility staff come out of...
The previously mentioned Migration Museum Project ‘100 Images of Migration‘ competition deadline has been extended to 15 July 2011. I have been given permission to use the image to the side as an example of one of the entries. A woman born in Britain holds the only two possessions her...
The legal luggage carousel of the tribunal’s reporting committee has deposited a large batch of new cases in the arrivals hall of BAILII. Some of these cases are interesting, others perhaps a little less so. The more interesting include a couple of cases on the availability of funds in Tier...
Last week, while I was away, the Supreme Court held that the Upper Tribunal can be judicially reviewed, and in much wider circumstances than envisaged previously by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. For England and Wales the case is Cart and MR (Pakistan) [2011] UKSC 28 and...
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a major judgment on return to Somalia and the conditions there. The press release can be found here and the judgment here (Word version here, BAILII version...
BAILII, the invaluable resource which provides much of the material for this blog, is under threat of closure. It seems that the Ministry of Justice has withdrawn funding, and BAILII are seeking replacement commitments from solicitors firms and barristers chambers. Some professional associations have also committed funds. I have sought...
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes a mass removal. Evidence of other breaches of confidentiality in Sri Lankan asylum cases is emerging. These could be isolated mistakes or there...
An investigation is required as a matter of extreme urgency into an accepted breach of confidentiality in respect of the case of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman detained by the UKBA and pending removal to Sri Lanka on 16 June 2011. It is important to stress that UKBA do not...
