The Migration Advisory Committee has published a review of the seasonal agricultural worker route, concluding that people in this route are “particularly susceptible to exploitation” and that “the current enforcement landscape for Seasonal Workers is fragmented and does not offer an adequate safeguard of seasonal worker rights”. The report looks...
The change to the immigration rules on 11 April 2024 regarding how absences would be calculated in the long residence route initially caused a lot of confusion because the drafting of the new rules was ambiguous, yet the updated guidance seemed to suggest that the 548 day limit no longer...
The process for identifying and supporting survivors of trafficking has been seriously degraded over the past couple of years and in this article I look at the position in relation to grants of leave made to those people who have been identified as survivors of trafficking. Some recent decisions considering...
It’s the return of the “mystery” stamp! Although the Court of Appeal has come to a different conclusion than the Upper Tribunal did, holding that while a passport stamp did not amount to a relevant document for Appendix EU purposes, the protection of the Withdrawal Agreement was engaged because of...
As part of its recent “rapid review” of the graduate route, the Migration Advisory Committee commissioned a qualitative study of the experiences of people who use the route. That study has been published and looks at people’s motivations to study in the UK, attitudes towards and experiences of the Graduate...
The “Pending Prosecutions” section of the EU Settlement Scheme: suitability requirements version 8.0 policy, which provided for applications to be paused where there was a pending prosecution, has been held to be unlawful by the Upper Tribunal. The case is R (Lukasz Krzysztofik) v Secretary of State for the Home...
Rainbow Migration, the longest-running charity in Europe dedicated to supporting LGBTQI+ people through the asylum and immigration system, is recruiting a Legal Officer to advise and help improve the representation of LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum and help change the asylum and immigration system to one that treats everyone with compassion,...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! For those who are interested, here is the list of ministerial appointments from Friday. As expected, the Home Secretary is now Yvette Cooper. Diana Johnson and Angela Eagle have been added as Home Office ministers this morning but I haven’t seen any detail of their...
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons has published a report on an unannounced inspection of Harmondsworth immigration removal centre, a facility run by Mitie Care and Custody, concluding that “there is a huge amount of work to be done to get Harmondsworth even up to the mediocre standards we found at...
The High Court has again confirmed that mandatory sponsor licence revocation is, indeed, mandatory. One Trees Estates Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1644 (Admin) brings consensus to the courts’ approach on the Home Office’s duty to undertake a wider...
In R (SM) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1683 (Admin), the High Court found a reasonable grounds (first stage) trafficking decision to be unlawful as it failed to consider all the relevant evidence and context in the claimant’s case. This is an interesting and...
A visit visa allows a person to visit the United Kingdom on a temporary basis, usually for up to six months at a time. As is typical of many sections of the immigration rules, the rules for visitors are complex and spread across several different appendices. The rules are also...
This post is for those who are new to the area of Windrush compensation claims, or who would like to submit their own claim, and is designed to be a beginner’s guide to the application process. Background to the scheme In April 2018, the news that long-term lawful residents, including...
The Court of Appeal has held that the Home Secretary wrongly found that the owner of a heavy good vehicle was not eligible for a reduction in the penalty applied to it following one of its drivers arriving in the UK with clandestine entrants. The case is KLG Trucking SRL...
Excess absences remain a real risk for holders of pre-settled status, with recent changes announced to the EU Settlement Scheme likely to cause more confusion. The changes mean that some people with pre-settled status may see their status automatically upgraded to settled status by the Home Office, while others may...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! We are finally down to the last few days before the election, and Refugee Council has published what looks like a pretty strong list of “day one” recommendations for the new government on asylum. The King’s Speech will take place on 17 July and we wait to...
I am looking forward to voting Labour on 4 July. I live in the Bristol Central constituency and am fortunate to have Thangam Debbonaire as my local MP. I’m doubly pleased to be able to vote for a Labour government and for Thangam personally. She would be a brilliant Secretary...
The Asylum Support Tribunal has found that there is a right of appeal against a decision to stop a person’s asylum support where their asylum claim has been deemed withdrawn by the Home Office, for example where the substantive asylum interview was missed. The Home Office guidance “Ceasing Section 95...
Immigration and nationality law as it relates to international adoption is undoubtedly complex and a topic with which only a few practitioners are familiar. There are numerically very few international adoption cases, after all. The inevitable cross over with family law does not make it any easier. This blog post...
In JR v Advocate General for Scotland [2024] CSOH 64, the Court of Session has encouraged greater use of the powers to transfer a judicial review to the Upper Tribunal and laid out what factors might be relevant in making that decision. In Scotland, all applications for judicial review are...
The High Court has held that the decision made by Suella Braverman not to implement recommendations made in Wendy Williams’ review into the Windrush scandal was unlawful. The recommendations specifically related to the creation of a Migrants’ Commissioner role and the review of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It was Refugee Week last week and so we updated and republished some of our explainers, including this one which takes an in depth look at the latest data on the asylum system. The backlog has essentially moved to the extremities of the asylum system,...
Today the British Institute of International & Comparative Law, the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group and the Human Trafficking Foundation have published a new report on the impact of the Nationality and Borders Act on survivors of modern slavery. Provisions in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 relating to modern slavery came...
The Home Office introduced immigration concessions and special visa schemes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These were the Ukraine family scheme, Ukraine extension scheme, and Homes for Ukraine scheme. The department’s “core plan” was to issue visas rather than formal refugee status to Ukrainian citizens,...
In this podcast Sonia discusses Kalayaan’s new report “12 years of modern slavery” with Avril Sharp, immigration lawyer and policy officer. The report looks at the history of the overseas domestic worker visa, and the harmful changes that have made. They also discuss the impact of the Nationality and Borders...
Following last year’s legacy backlog clearance exercise, the backlog of cases has shifted to either end of the asylum process. There are tens of thousands of cases that are sitting in the inadmissibility process and not even being considered, and then there are also tens of thousands of cases that...
Closing date: 7 July 2024 Glasgow Thorntons’ has one of the leading immigration practices in Scotland, assisting clients through complex immigration processes with expertise, professionalism, empathy and care. We now have a new opportunity for another Caseworker to join the team in Glasgow. What to expect This is an exciting...
Over and over again we hear that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country the reach. There are variations on the theme. Genuine refugees claim asylum in the first safe country. Refugees should or even must claim asylum in the first safe country. The asylum seekers coming to...
Consultant Legal Administrator at PRCBC We need an experienced legal administrator on a consultancy (self-employed) basis. Our preference would be 10-5pm for 2 days per week, including the first Saturday of each month. We are very small, registered charity representing children and young people with their complex citizenship rights. We...
Currently a comfortable 23 points ahead in opinion polls with just under three weeks to the general election, the Labour Party has published its election manifesto. Sectors of the economy hit by a massive recent hike in salary thresholds for sponsoring skilled workers will be poring over the manifesto for...
This piece is about refugees, asylum seekers, and the Refugee Convention. It outlines who can be a refugee, and how being a refugee and having “refugee status” are two very different things. We also explore the rights and entitlements available to refugees and to asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! When I wrote up RAMFEL’s section 3C case last week I ended on the point that the use of digital immigration status is incompatible with the hostile environment. It is difficult to see how the government’s switch to digital status is going to be anything...
One of the changes wrought by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (remember that?) is an apparent increase in the standard of proof in refugee status claims. This change applies to everyone who applied for asylum on or after 28 June 2022. There has been a huge waiting time for...
Lawyers do not own the word “refugee”. The term has been in use since the eighteenth century and has its own evocative, wider meaning in the public consciousness. Those fleeing Ukraine or relocating to the United Kingdom from Hong Kong can validly be referred to as “refugees”, for example, even...
Here is your May round up of Free Movement. In this episode Colin and Sonia look at the latest immigration, asylum and trafficking statistics, including discussion of the fee waiver backlog. They also cover the latest on “safe and legal” routes for those in Afghanistan and Gaza. Sonia nerds it...
The latest quarterly statistics for the tribunals covering the period January to March 2024 have been published today and in news that should not surprise anyone, the clearing of the legacy asylum backlog and increase in refusals has had a huge impact on the number of asylum appeals pending in...
