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...
So says the tribunal in MD (same-sex oriented males: risk) India CG [2014] UKUT 65 (IAC), anyway. And even if there was risk in the home area, the tribunal considers that relocation within India is generally reasonable and “LGBT support organisations” can provide help going underground if need be (para...
The Home Office have started giving directions for the removal of failed asylum seekers to Mogadishu on Turkish Airline flights via Istanbul. Anyone given such removal directions might ask the Home Office to reconsider whether they risk violating their human rights in the light of the announcement by Al Shabaab...
For we tribunal watchers the list is notably short. Judicial ambitions to categorise, measure and risk assess the entire world have been scaled back, perhaps because of the impossibility of the task but more likely because resources are being absorbed by the transfer of judicial review into the Upper Tribunal....
Any asylum practitioner is likely to come across cases where, rather than investigate the merits of an asylum claim, the Home Office seeks to return their client to a third country elsewhere in the European Union deemed under the Dublin II Regulation to have prior responsibility for assessing the claim,...
Around 3,000 couples in England and Wales will tie the knot tomorrow (Saturday 15 February). According to a Home Office guestimate between 48 and 123 of these marriages will be ‘sham’, which is to say they will not be ‘genuine and subsisting’ as required by UK Immigration Rules. But what...
[UPDATE: blog post on how the hearing went here] The hearing of the test case challenge to the spouse minimum income rules is approaching and the team behind the challenge seek information about how decisions are being handled at the moment by Entry Clearance Officers on the ground. We would...
There has now been a fairly substantial series of Court of Appeal judgments on the issue of costs orders in an immigration litigation context. These also have wider significance for other public law cases, but immigration law is currently dominating public law litigation, at least by volume, as this widely...
Reading through the Home Office’s response to a recent Home Affairs Select Committee, this jumped out at me: The Home Office does not permit caseworkers to ask prurient questions about sexual matters or require applicants to produce sexually explicit material in support of their claim. This is somewhat questionable given...
You might be forgiven for thinking that when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has already recognised an individual’s status as a refugee, national decision-makers would ordinarily follow suit. After all, UNHCR has unmatched expertise in refugee status determinations, and its determinations are normally made closer in time and...
Immigration Minister Mark Harper has resigned from the Government because in 2007 he employed a cleaner who did not have permission to work. Harper claims that he has not broken the law but is resigning because “I should hold myself to a higher standard than expected of others”. The first...
A Home Office spokesman said: “Staff who make exceptional contributions to the work of the Home Office are eligible for special one-off payments” Apparently a total of 11,672 bonuses were paid in 2012/13 to around 40% of staff, equating to a mean bonus of £559. Who knew that 40% of...
A new report from Women For Refugee Women (‘WFRW’) sheds a sickening light on the conditions for women asylum seekers detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC. 70 per cent of the women they interviewed that were guarded by men said that the very presence of male staff made them feel uncomfortable....
