Ved and another (appealable decisions; permission applications; Basnet) [2014] UKUT 150 (IAC) is a new case from the Upper Tribunal on the vexed issue of immigration applications the Home Office considers to be invalid. The tribunal takes the view that a Home Office decision that an application is invalid cannot...
When the Immigration Rules for families were changed in July 2012, it was the minimum income threshold that rightly attracted the most attention. It has caused huge misery and has divided many loving families, sometimes separating children from parents. It is particularly harsh because the income threshold is set so...
The present Government has declared its intention to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. True to its word, the Go Home vans, the ‘papers please’ raids on public transport hubs, the targeting of foreign students, the increasingly demented bureaucracy of the immigration rules and the harsh family migration rules are...
The Court of Appeal has in the case of Edgehill & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 settled the question of whether the new human rights rules introduced on 9 July 2012 apply to applications made before that date: they do not. Specifically,...
Important grant of permission from the Court of Appeal in six linked cases addressing issues arising from D and N cases at Strasbourg and subsequent treatment by the UK courts. For some legal background see this earlier blog post. In granting permission Maurice Kay LJ says: I have indicated that...
Update: The Daily Record has carried a story about the whole affair. Update 2: And it’s on Buzzfeed now as well. Busy creating some of the new online courses for the new training project, I was looking for something on the unnavigable gov.uk website and came across the Home Office...
The Home Office has managed to use a photo of a child that it wanted to remove from the UK as the face of its campaign to overturn a High Court judgment allowing divided families to be reunited. The news item concerns the controversial minimum income rule that is dividing...
According to the Independent newspaper, scientists have located “the conscience.” It’s in the front part of the brain and is the size of a Brussels’ sprout. For those who object to military service on grounds of conscience, this is where the action happens. The UNHCR’s “Guidelines on Military Service“, published...
The story of Yashika Bageerathi has touched many. A bright student brought to the UK by her mother with her siblings to escape domestic violence at home in Mauritius, she has a promising future here if allowed to remain. Because she has turned 18 and is no longer a child,...
Very pleased to have played a role in bringing about this review: it was here on Free Movement that the case referred to by May was revealed before being picked up by The Observer. A Home Office document leaked earlier this year revealed how one bisexual asylum seeker was asked...
In another highly critical report on immigration enforcement by the Home Office, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine has found that in nearly two thirds of cases (59%) immigration enforcement officers entering business premises lacked the legal authority to do so and in addition were regularly flouting...
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has just published a damning report looking at the removals process at the Home Office. That the Home Office is not effective in conducting removals is hardly news to those of us who work in immigration law but even I was surprised by...
On 19 January 2014, Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa May told the Daily Mail that Britain’s generous welfare system should no longer be a ‘magnet’ for citizens of other EU states and that they would be introducing a number of measures aimed at new migrant jobseekers from the European Economic...
In a handy case that arrived just after I’d finished a Court of Appeal skeleton on the same subject, Mr Justice McCloskey has delivered another of his characteristically interesting determinations. This one is MM (unfairness; E & R) Sudan [2014] UKUT 105 (IAC), on the subject of procedural fairness amounting...
Which all leads us to the following devastating question: how did this life, so full of historical resonance, affection and adventure, end up extinguished, in handcuffs, in a British asylum detention centre? Great journalism but very upsetting piece. The Home Office attempt to blame the security contractors is particularly repugnant.
...The Department of Work and Pensions has introduced the Minimum Earnings Threshold ‘(MET)’ as part of the decision making process for determining whether EEA nationals who claim income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA(IB)) have retained the status of a ‘worker’. Here I look at what it is, how it works, its intended...
We suggest that if the sureties were aware of x’s illegal status in the UK, they have been complicit in assisting him in defying UK immigration law, and are therefore unsuitable in ensuring he comply with the conditions of bail. Alternatively, if these sureties were unaware of x’s illegal status...
The habitual residence test has been part of the benefits system since 1996. Under the test, new entrants to the UK and returning nationals are required to show that they are habitually resident in the Common Travel Area (the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic...
A new official report on Monitoring Places of Detention by an independent governmental monitoring body raises serious concerns about the immigration enforcement process. The private security contractors responsible are criticised for disproportionate use of force and restraint, unprofessional behaviour and use of ‘very offensive language’ in front of immigration detainees...
[WITH UPDATES] In the second Statement of Changes this month, a number of adjustments to the Immigration Rules have been announced by Minister James Brokenshire. You can also read some propaganda about how great the changes are for geeks here. Link to the actual Statement of Changes to follow when...
Immigration Law News For the Home Office’s report: “Impacts of migration on UK native employment: An analytical review of the evidence”, click here. From 1 April 2014, the British Refugee Council and Migrant Helpline will provide advice services to asylum seekers and refugees. To read further, click here. For updated...
UPDATE: Outcome now known and reported here. Last week the Court of Appeal heard the Home Office appeal in the spouse visa minimum income case. The judges heard argument over two days and did not give a decision there and then. The timescale for a decision is unknown but is...
The first blog post on Free Movement was on 7 March 2007. Yet again, I managed to miss the blog’s birthday! The spanking post was perhaps a suitable commemoration, though: a serious topic covered with a frivolous headline. Since 7 March 2007 there have been: 3,048,451 visits to Free Movement...
What is a radical lawyer? What I mean by it are those lawyers whose actions and attitudes were largely motivated by a political ideology – socialism and further left; or at least angry lawyers dedicated to fundamental changes to the law, its institutions and the legal system. They were fearless...
A Parliamentary written answer yesterday revealed that of the Syrians that managed to get to the UK to claim asylum in 2013, 24 were forcibly removed and a further 20 remain in immigration detention today. That seems to me truly shocking. It certainly gives lie to the UK Government’s hollow...
Like a bad itch that it can’t help but scratch, the tribunal returns again to the subject of Article 8 and ‘the proper approach’. Regretfully the distasteful, injudicious and simply impolite phrase “a run of the mill case” is again deployed, albeit this time in the context of a student...
In Hiri v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWHC 254 (Admin) the Administrative Court found for the Claimant in an application for Judicial Review of the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse naturalisation on grounds of ‘good character’. The judgment provides useful judicial comment as to how...
The Upper Tribunal has in a new judgment [R (on the application of Kumar & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (acknowledgement of service; Tribunal arrangements) (IJR) [2014] UKUT 104 (IAC)] now set out how it will deal with the vast majority of judicial reviews in which...
As of 1 October 2013 there is a new formal mechanism for making complaints about judges. The process is set out in the Judicial Conduct (Tribunals) Rules 2013. A colleague alerted me to these rules and a recent comment on the blog persuaded me that it is worth highlighting them...
