The Upper Tribunal has declared the government’s strict policy on asylum seekers working to be unlawful because it doesn’t mention that exceptions can be made. The case is R (C6) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (asylum seekers’ permission to work) [2021] UKUT 94 (IAC). We originally published...
The European Court of Human Rights in K.I. v France (application no. 5560/19) has re-affirmed that refugee status is declaratory and revocation of a person’s refugee status under French and EU law does not prevent that person from continuing to be a refugee under the Refugee Convention. Authorities revoking someone’s...
The proposed Super League for top European football clubs has attracted immense legal as well as sporting interest, with The Lawyer magazine even running a live blog on the subject. Much of the focus is on legal ways to strangle the proposed competition at birth. One possible avenue is the...
The judgment of the Court of Appeal in MR (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for Justice & Others [2021] EWCA Civ 541 marks a major step forward in the battle over the use of immigration detention in prisons. The court has decided that the absence of a Rule 35 procedure...
In R (Lawal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (death in detention, SoS’s duties) [2021] UKUT 114 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has decided that the Home Office’s policies on the death of immigration detainees are contrary to its procedural obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on...
Some interesting nuggets from a new report on judicial review, published today by the Institute for Government. The Home Office is the department most affected by this particular type of legal challenge, accounting for 80% of JRs between 2007 and 2013, of which most related to immigration and asylum decisions....
[Note 16/07/21: This position has now been filled] Law Firm Operations Manager A new position based primarily in our Oxford office with the possibility of remote working and part time or a flexible working week. Salary from £32,500 per annum pro rata. Closing date for applications: 30 April 2021 About...
The second edition of Professor James Hathaway’s The Rights of Refugees Under International Law, to be published on 22 April 2021, is incredibly well-timed. Our government here in the United Kingdom is proposing “off-shore processing” of asylum claims — if an agreement can be reached with some other country to...
Procedure-wise, immigration judicial reviews don’t tend to be that speedy. When you get to the end of the road, you may have run out of steam when it comes to settling the issue of costs. But if applicant / appellant representatives are to make it work in a world where...
Anna Delvey (née Sorokin) is perhaps the most (in)famous con artist in the world. After bluffing her way into New York high society, she was eventually caught out, convicted of various offences including grand larceny, and received a sentence of 4–12 years in New York state prison (as well as...
From 1 July 2021, EU, EEA and Swiss citizens living in the UK without having applied for pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme will be here unlawfully. The Home Secretary confirmed a few months ago that people can apply after that deadline, but they must have “reasonable...
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) has confirmed that with lockdown easing, it is resuming sponsor licence compliance visits. Initial visits will be focused on organisations that have a pending sponsor licence application. Confirming the resumption of visits in a recent message on the Sponsorship Management System, UKVI was keen to...
Welcome to episode 87 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we’re covering two main sets of reform proposals, the New Plan for Immigration and changes to judicial review. We’ve also got a bunch of new Immigration Rules to mention, a handful of interesting cases and a proposed...
Refugee Legal Support is recruiting for a director, as well as bringing on board new trustees and advisory panel members. The job description for each role is below, or you can download each one as a separate pdf from the RLS website. 1. Director Job Title: Director Salary: £36,000 –...
As we continue to grapple with the impact of Brexit, my colleagues and I experienced an increase in Dublin III certification and removal cases at the tail end of last year. In many of those cases, removal directions were deferred and certification decisions were eventually withdrawn. Despite this signalling a...
When someone applies for indefinite leave to remain in the UK, but is granted limited leave to remain instead, that decision does not attract a right of appeal. So held President Lane of the Upper Tribunal last year in the case of Mujahid [2020] UKUT 85 (IAC), discussed by Colin...
The updated list of fees for immigration and nationality applications that apply from 6 April 2021 shows that all remain unchanged from last year. This marks the third financial year running that headline application fees have been largely frozen, having last increased significantly in April 2018. There is a catch:...
The Home Secretary has laid a new draft of the Adults at Risk statutory guidance before Parliament. The new version marks a significant change in how trafficking victims fit within the policy framework for detaining vulnerable people. At present, the Home Office has a policy of releasing people from immigration...
Head of Personal Migration and Protection: Oxford/London [Merger opportunity] We are a young and dynamic specialist Immigration law firm based in Oxford with strong links to London. We seek a qualified solicitor or barrister with a minimum of three years’ relevant PQE to step up to the above role to...
Here on Free Movement we have been repeating until we are blue in the face that the deadline for EU Settlement Scheme applications is 30 June 2021. Regular readers may by now feel rather bludgeoned over the head with this fact, but it remains a vitally important message given that...
When someone says that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, what they really mean is that other countries should look after refugees. They want others to do what they would not do themselves. Their words are really addressed to the countries through which the refugee...
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v Starkey [2021] EWCA Civ 421 the Court of Appeal provides a helpful reminder of the need for very clear language when explaining how evidence has been examined and assessed. The immigration tribunal’s ambiguity on a crucial piece of evidence was enough...
Emma Harrison recently argued on this site for a “campaigning in the middle ground’’ approach to advocacy. A central element of this position is that we need to be engaging with those who don’t share our agenda. It is not new to suggest that we have more in common with...
Although the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020 and the post-Brexit transition period came to an end on 31 December 2020, certain aspects of EU free movement law continue to apply into 2021 — but not for much longer. Old EU residence documents such as permanent residence...
Section 4B of the British Nationality Act 1981 entitles people with British National (Overseas) citizenship to register as British citizens if they: do not have any other citizenship or nationality, and have not, since 19 March 2009, “renounced, voluntarily relinquished or lost through action or inaction any citizenship or nationality”....
One of the recommendations to the Home Office in a recent report by the immigration inspector was to “professionalise” Presenting Officers. Among the suggestions was that a code of conduct was necessary for Presenting Officers to establish a consistent standard of behaviour. This recommendation was acted upon relatively quickly, by...
The government should consider introducing visas for people both in need of humanitarian assistance and who can make an economic contribution to the UK, a new report suggests. The Social Market Foundation argues there should be a way for migrants to enter the UK on “combined economic integration and humanitarian...
The statute book is crammed with criminal offences relating to borders and immigration control, from entering the UK illegally to renting property to an unauthorised migrant. Most are rarely prosecuted, with an average of 625 prosecutions a year between 2017 and 2019. But many convictions are high-profile, with a steady...
With the Armed Forces Bill making its way through Parliament, the opposition announced yesterday that it is moving a clause to ensure that service personnel with Commonwealth citizenship should not have to pay £2,389 for indefinite leave to remain following their service. We would also look to end the currently...
Job details Role Title: Immigration/EUSS Programme Manager Grade: C Salary: £32,029 – £35,934 per annum pro rata, depending on experience Hours: Full time Contract: Permanent Location: London Reports to: Deputy CEO Background East European Resource Centre (EERC) is an independent charity that has been providing advice and support to disadvantaged...
There is a lot that is familiar in the New Plan for Immigration. The government argues that its proposals are “firm but fair”, language eerily reminiscent of a 1998 Blair-era white paper entitled Fairer, Faster and Firmer. One thing that is new is the proposal that many of those who...
Time is definitely a relative concept, a new Upper Tribunal decision suggests, examining the issue of what constitutes a “month” for the purposes of the Immigration Rules on long residence. The case of Chang (paragraph 276A(a)(v); 18 months?) [2021] UKUT 65 (IAC) involved an application under the ten-year lawful residence...
Today the Home Office published a new plan for immigration with the title, somehow both grandiloquent and banal, New Plan for Immigration. It is mainly concerned with asylum and people who enter the UK illegally (those two concepts being subtly mashed together) but there are also some miscellaneous proposals for...
We’ve seen a constant drip of leaks about the UK’s “broken” asylum system and how the upcoming Borders Bill or Sovereign Borders Bill or New Plan For Immigration or whatever it’s called will be the “biggest overhaul of the asylum system in a generation”. A lot of this is cover...
In R (AM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (legal “limbo”) [2021] UKUT 62 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal considered the extraordinary case of a Belarusian man who had been in the UK on immigration bail since 2003. The fundamental question for the tribunal: where removal cannot be effected,...
The Upper Tribunal has rejected an attempt to put a report by an unofficial grouping of MPs into evidence in an English language testing appeal. The case is DK and RK (Parliamentary privilege; evidence) India [2021] UKUT 61 (IAC) and the official headnote reads: (1) Although the Upper Tribunal is...
The High Court has taken a leading firm of solicitors to task for its handling of an urgent application for judicial review of conditions at a converted military barracks holding asylum seekers, but concluded that the case was not serious enough to warrant referral to the solicitors’ regulator. Instead the...
Please help us to map the availability of free immigration legal advice across the UK. Following on from the London Immigration Advice Mapping project, we’re now trying to understand demand for and supply of advice region by region, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We’re keen to hear from as...
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) has allowed the appeals of three people who were deprived of their British citizenship following allegations that they had travelled to Syria and posed a threat to national security. The case is C3, C4 & C7 v Secretary of State for the Home Department...
