The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law, edited by Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam and published in June 2021, is a massive book in every sense. Some five years in the making, running to 1,258 pages, consisting of 65 chapters, all by different authors (and sometimes multiple authors),...
The Upper Tribunal can consider late acknowledgments of service from the Home Office when deciding whether to grant permission for judicial review proceedings, the Court of Appeal has ruled in R (KA) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1040. Issues in the case The first...
Part 3 of the Nationality and Borders Bill 2021 includes provisions relating to immigration offences and enforcement. It criminalises arriving in the UK, as well as formally entering, making it almost impossible to claim asylum in the UK without first committing a criminal offence. People helping asylum seekers get to...
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that forcing sponsors to wait for a minimum of three years before applying for family reunification without an individualised assessment of the family’s circumstances violates Article 8 of the human rights convention. The case is MA v Denmark (application no. 6697/18). MA...
Half of all Tier 1 (Investor) visas ever issued are being reviewed on national security grounds, according to an anti-corruption charity. A new briefing by Spotlight on Corruption says that over 6,300 Investor visa grants between 2008 and 2015 — half the total issued to date — “are being reviewed...
We covered the nationality portion of the New Plan for Immigration in an earlier article. Many of those proposals, largely concerning British Overseas Territories citizens and the Windrush generation, were notably less cruel and unusual than the other aspects of the New Plan, and might even have been described as...
UK Migration Lawyers is excited to be seeking two immigration caseworkers to join its Birmingham based team. We are seeking candidates with strong immigration law experience who are passionate, driven, organised, self-motivated and who want to show their abilities in this fast paced and challenging environment. This position is an...
We’re late to this judgment, published on the same day as the Borders Bill, but it’s already been well covered by Matrix Chambers and The Guardian. The latter’s headline: Judge tells Priti Patel to bring asylum seeker back to UK. The case is AA (Sudan) v Secretary of State for...
Welcome to episode 90 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. We’re covering June 2021, which feels a little unreal given the Nationality and Borders Bill had landed shortly before we were due to record. But life goes on, and we’ve got a few points about the EU Settlement Scheme...
Assisting migrants who lack mental capacity to instruct a lawyer, or whose capacity fluctuates, can pose challenges. Without having clear instructions on a person’s immigration history and what they would like to do, it can often be impossible to provide legal advice and representation. Law Society guidance is also clear...
Yesterday’s Nationality and Borders Bill gives legislative expression to a set of government policies branded “New Plan for Immigration”. A consultation on the New Plan for Immigration ran from 24 March to 6 May 2021. There was a huge response: the House of Commons Library has catalogued 42 organisational submissions,...
The Court of Session in Scotland and the High Court in England and Wales have both ruled that newly recognised refugees have a right to claim backdated child tax credit. The cases are Adnan, Petitioners [2021] CSOH 63 and R (DK) v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2021] EWHC 1845...
Imagine that you are – for the sake of argument – involved in a democracy movement in a post-Soviet dictatorship. Recently the police picked you up, beat the hell out of you and assaulted you in ways you’d rather not dwell on. Then they booted you out of the police...
The much-hyped Nationality and Borders Bill is here. It mainly addresses asylum issues but there are some nationality provisions included as well, which we have already covered and will return to in another article soon. My first impressions, reading through the Bill, are that A lot of it is already...
Hundreds of refugee children denied reunion with family in the UK may be able to challenge that decision following a ruling that Home Office policy on “Dublin III” transfers is in part unlawful. The case is R (Safe Passage International) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC...
“Illegal immigration to be turned into a criminal offence in landmark borders bill”, the Sunday Express reports. The idea that unauthorised immigration is insufficiently criminalised will surprise legislators who have spent much of the past two decades piling dozens and dozens of new immigration offences onto the statute books. “Illegal...
Lawyer £28,000 – 34,000 per annum (depending on experience) Permanent, Full-Time (37.5 hrs per week) OR part-time 80% FTE Member of the UK Legal and Arrivals Team London office (currently working remotely due to Covid-19 restrictions) Reporting to Head of UK Legal and Arrivals Line Management Responsibilities: N/A Safe Passage...
On 1 July 2021, the British Nationality Act 1981 (Immigration Rules Appendix EU) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021 No. 743) introduced a new section 10A to the British Nationality Act 1981. This new section is aimed at ensuring that certain children born from 1 July 2021 onwards will automatically acquire...
The protection afforded to children who are long-term UK residents has been further diluted in a new Court of Appeal decision, NA (Bangladesh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 953. The judgment is the latest in a line of cases to grapple with what exactly...
Non-EU citizens can potentially have a deportation order against them revoked where they have acquired or could acquire rights as family members of EU nationals. Such opportunities will continue to be relevant to a specific group of people for some years to come. This post will try to unravel this...
When the Home Office want to deport an EU citizen who has committed a criminal offence it adopts a two-stage process. First it issues a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN). This lets the person know that the Home Office is considering deportation and invites representations. The second stage is issuing the...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that an immigration tribunal is not obliged to accept the conclusions of an expert witness. The case of MS (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 941 confirms that a tribunal is required to reach its own conclusions. In...
The Brexit vote, the triggering of Article 50, the failed May deal, the Johnson capitulation, the legal exit at the start of 2020 and the economic exit at the year’s end have all come and gone. On 30 June 2021 comes another milestone: the deadline for EU residents and their...
An eight-month detention period for EU citizens is disproportionate, the Court of Justice of the European Union has decided. The case is C-718/19 Ordre des barreaux francophones and germanophone and Others. The case originated in the Belgian courts. Legislation in Belgium designed to facilitate the removal of unauthorised non-EU nationals,...
Brexit begins on 1 July. From that date, “hostile environment” checks apply to EU citizens in earnest. It will no longer be possible to satisfy an immigration status check — for benefits, employment or a tenancy — by flashing an EU passport. Instead, as Home Office guidance puts it, EU...
Most people applying to the EU Settlement Scheme do so entirely online. A minority cannot, including adults without a valid passport, young children with no ID at all and non-EU citizens who qualify for the scheme under various scenic routes (known to lawyers as Zambrano, Chen, Ibrahim/Teixeira and Surinder Singh)....
The High Court has overturned a tribunal judgment that had instructed the Home Office to house refused asylum seekers until lockdown restrictions end. The decision in R (Secretary of State for the Home Department) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2021] EWHC 1690 (Admin) is said to affect at least...
The Court of Appeal has rebuked the Upper Tribunal for reversing an immigration judge’s decision without identifying an error of law. The Upper Tribunal’s jurisdiction to allow an appeal from the First-tier Tribunal depends on having first identified an error of law in the decision. In this case, the Upper...
This, in a sentence, is the conclusion reached by the Upper Tribunal (after 248 paragraphs!) in R (Waseem & Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (long residence policy – interpretation) [2021] UKUT 146 (IAC). Background: overstaying and long residence This is the fifth time within the last...
The important case of Akinsanya, which we introduced in these articles, has opened the door for many non-European primary carers of British citizens to now apply for residence rights under the EU Settlement Scheme. There are many advantages to doing so — but also some pitfalls and potential issues to...
R (Akbar) v Secretary of State for Justice [2021] EWCA Civ 898 was a challenge to the Prison Rules 1999, one of which says that a prisoner who is being deported and has run out of appeals “must not be classified as suitable for open conditions”. The challenge was unsuccessful....
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On 9 June, in the case of Akinsanya, the High Court found that the definition of Zambrano carers in the rules for the EU Settlement Scheme was wrong, insofar as it prevented those with permission to remain under another part of the Immigration Rules from applying. With the deadline to...
International students are worth billions to the UK economy in higher education fees and indirect expenditure, benefitting local communities financially as well as enriching them in non-economic terms. Being able to attract overseas students is crucial to the economic viability of many education providers, but only those with a sponsor...
No matter how devastating may be epidemic, natural disaster or famine, a person fleeing them is not a refugee within the terms of the Convention. A v Minister for Immigration & Ethnic Affairs [1997] HCA 4 (Aus HC) As the High Court of Australia highlights in the quote above, there...
Copy: Refugee Week 2020Infogram This week is Refugee Week. From 14-20 June 2021, the UK celebrates the contribution of refugees and promotes better understanding of why people seek sanctuary. The infographic above draws on government figures to illustrate some trends in asylum in the UK. Most of the data comes...
On 15 December 2020 the Home Office published a short guidance document covering absences from the UK connected to COVID-19. It applies to EEA citizens and their family members who have settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, or those who are eligible but haven’t applied yet. That...
In case C-165/16 Lounes, the Court of Justice of the European Union found that EU citizens who moved to the UK to exercise free movement rights and later naturalised as British (while also keeping their EU nationality) retain their free movement rights, even after naturalisation. This is particularly helpful for...
Since the introduction of highly restrictive rules for adult dependent relatives there have been numerous stories, all desperately sad, of parents trying and failing to join or remain with their children in the UK. Mobeen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 886 is yet another...
