Boris Johnson is the new leader of the Conservative Party, and our next Prime Minister. How might he change the UK government’s policy on immigration? An important question, and when it comes to Johnson potentially a Sisyphean task, given his reputation as someone who will say whatever he thinks will...
Campaign group the3million has raised £50,000 in crowdfunding to support a legal challenge to the government’s handling of the European elections. The organisation says that widespread reports of EU citizens being unable to vote for members of the European Parliament in May were the government’s fault. It wants a declaration...
Over 900,000 people have applied for EU settled status so far. By the end of June 2019, the Home Office had processed 806,000 applications, granting full settled status in 65% of cases and pre-settled status in 35% of cases. The department says that nobody has been refused status outright. There...
Welcome to episode 66 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. CJ has just been on a podcasting course and you may notice a few differences this month, including some intro music. This month we start in the Supreme Court with its decision on the Worker Registration Scheme. We then...
The First-tier and Upper Tribunals seem to have gone rather badly wrong in the case of MAB (Iraq) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1253, involving an Iraqi doctor who was formerly employed to care for prisoners by Iraqi military intelligence. The Court of...
Mystery solved. Business immigration lawyers were nonplussed by Wednesday’s urgent amendment to the rules on sponsoring migrant workers, which emphasised that the “Home Office will not license organisations whose actions and behaviour are non-conducive to the public good”. As Nichola asked, why now? It turns out that the change was...
In immigration law, deadlines are important. They also frequently cause confusion. Sound familiar? That may be because this is how I began a post last month following the Upper Tribunal case of Bhavsar. The Upper Tribunal has now published another case demonstrating the importance of, and confusion caused by, deadlines...
The Home Office regularly updates the guidance documents that it issues to approved visa sponsors, and those thinking of becoming one, under Tiers 2, 4 and 5 of the Points Based System. Tier 4 covers sponsors of international students and Tiers 2 and 5 relate to those coming to the...
The immigration detention system continues to discriminate against migrants with mental health conditions, in breach of the Equality Act 2010, the Court of Appeal has held. The case is R (ASK) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1239. The appeal concerned two men, known as...
In the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v PG (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 1213 the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of “unduly harsh” in deportation cases, overturning the decisions of both of the tribunals that had previously heard the appeal. In this post we look...
A cross-party group of MPs has published a highly critical report on the Home Office’s treatment of visit visa applicants from Africa. It forms part of an ongoing inquiry into the high level of visa refusals for Africans seeking to visit the UK for professional or business reasons. The report,...
The Court of Appeal has taken a restrictive approach to the admission of new evidence before the Upper Tribunal that was not available before the First-tier Tribunal. The case is Kabir v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1162. In Kabir, the First-tier Tribunal had refused...
In the fraught context of Brexit, the need to register EU citizens already resident in the UK presents a major conundrum of policy, law, and administration. The government’s answer is the EU Settlement Scheme. It is expected that millions of people, from a wide variety of different backgrounds, will apply...
The Home Office cannot detain an EU citizen pending deportation without first considering whether detention is “proportionate and necessary” under EU law, the Court of Appeal has said in R (Lauzikas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1168. Any decision to detain cannot be based...
The severity of sentences imposed for giving unqualified immigration advice has risen, with the regulator increasingly making use of anti-fraud laws to prosecute bogus advisers. The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) successfully prosecuted 14 people last year, according to the organisation’s annual report. Five went to jail, with...
Who would have thought that defining who is, and isn’t, a professional sportsperson would be so difficult? The government has been grappling with this issue for some time. First attempt Back in January, and somewhat out of the blue, the Home Office made fairly significant changes to the definition of...
In MS (appealable decisions; PTA requirements; anonymity : Belgium) [2019] UKUT 216 (IAC), President Lane and Upper Tribunal Judges Gill and Finch provide important guidance on jurisdiction in EEA deportation and Article 8 appeals and the correct procedure for raising “cross appeals” in the Upper Tribunal. I represented the claimant...
In 2016 the Home Office embarked on an attempt to homogenise the application processes for immigration applications made under EU law and those made under UK law. The Upper Tribunal has confirmed in Rehman (EEA Regulations 2016 – specified evidence) [2019] UKUT 195 (IAC) that there are limits to how...
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Paul Harris or Tommy Robinson or whatever he calls himself today, has directly appealed to President Donald Trump to be granted asylum and evacuated to safety in the United States in an interview with notorious website Infowars. I won’t link to them, but you can look it up...
Boris Johnson’s suggestion of an “amnesty for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants”, as the Daily Mail puts it, has ruffled some right-wing feathers, but would it really revolutionise UK immigration policy? Johnson, who looks set to secure victory in the Conservative leadership race, told the paper he supported the...
Parliament’s human rights committee has hit out at the controversial “good character” test in child citizenship applications, saying that it is “inappropriate” to disqualify British-born youngsters from citizenship because of petty misdemeanours. In a report published today, the Joint Committee on Human Rights says that “an unduly heavy-handed approach to...
In the recent Court of Appeal case of UT (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1095, Lord Justice Coulson has dealt with some important issues relating to practice and procedure in the tribunal system. UT is a Sri Lankan who came to the...
Do you want to help child refugees access safe, legal routes to sanctuary? Do you want to join a ground-breaking, determined and compassionate charity that is leading the fight for child refugees caught in limbo in Europe and elsewhere? Safe Passage is recruiting a Senior Lawyer. This is an exciting...
The official headnote to Durueke (PTA: AZ applied, proper approach) [2019] UKUT 197 (IAC), which reads more like a memo to self or some sort of passive-aggressive intra-judge fisticuffs: (i) In reaching a decision whether to grant permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal on a point that has not been...
The outsourcing giant in charge of processing visa applications made in the UK has stopped offering legal advice on applications following an outcry from immigration lawyers. UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services, operated on behalf of the Home Office by French firm Sopra Steria, had been touting a legal advice...
There are over 100 hours worth of immigration law training courses on Free Movement now, all accessible to paid members. The latest addition to the menu covers immigration bail. The core modules cover the practicalities of making a bail application to the Home Office or immigration tribunal, but we also...
States have domestic and international legal obligations to provide suitable housing for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. But a vulnerable young client at the Refugee Legal Support (RLS) clinic in Athens was last month kicked out of his accommodation for breaking the shelter’s rules. Jay*, a 17-year-old boy from Afghanistan, was condemned...
Immigration barristers with public access clients must publish their rates online under new price transparency rules. Bar Standards Board regulations now say that all self-employed barristers and chambers must provide basic pricing information, such as whether they charge fixed or hourly fees. Public access barristers taking on certain work —...
The High Court has ordered the Home Office to return an asylum seeker to the UK from Uganda because her 2013 asylum appeal hearing was unfair. PN v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 1616 (Admin) is the latest in a series of cases about the consequences...
The government has promised to abandon the strict 45-day time limit on help for victims of human trafficking following a judicial review challenge. The litigation, organised by Duncan Lewis, has forced the Home Office to concede that the 45-day policy is incompatible with the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention and...
Staff shortages mean that the immigration inspector’s office is struggling to effectively scrutinise the work of the Home Office, according to the organisation’s annual report. There are supposed to be 25 inspectors working under chief David Bolt, but by the end of March 2019 there were just 11 in post....
Last night the BBC concluded its three-part documentary about immigration lawyers and their clients, Who Should Get to Stay in the UK?. The series followed a variety of visa applicants and asylum seekers on their journey through the UK’s immigration system, giving the general public an insight into what it’s...
JOB TITLE: Head of Legal Protection CONTRACT: Sabbatical Cover (10 months cover; full-time 37.5 hours per week) SALARY: £45,000 p.a. BENEFITS: 22.5 days holiday, plus 4% matched pension contribution LOCATION: Camden, Central London RESPONSIBLE TO: Kerry Smith, CEO The Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) is a specialist UK charity which provides...
In immigration law, deadlines are important. They also frequently cause confusion. Bhavsar (late application for PTA: procedure) [2019] UKUT 196 (IAC) is an example of the complications that missing a deadline can cause. In Bhavsar the Upper Tribunal decided that, where an application for permission to appeal is submitted to...
Official government guidance claims that victims of human trafficking get rich from being sexually exploited in the UK and can be refused asylum, it has emerged. A new Home Office policy document on women trafficked from Nigeria says that those who become “wealthy from prostitution” enjoy “high socio-economic status” and...
Migrants who have spent ten years in the UK with continuous and lawful leave can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Can leave be “continuous” if it involved short gaps between lawful periods of leave where an applicant has overstayed? This was the question addressed by the Court of...
An immigration lawyer has been struck off after being caught on camera four years ago advising an undercover reporter about a sham marriage. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal made the decision in the case of Syed Mazaher Naqvi, a sole practitioner based in London. The tribunal found that Naqvi had failed...
Detention in a young offender institution has much the same impact on an EU citizen’s enhanced protection against deportation as imprisonment in an adult jail, the Court of Appeal has held. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Viscu [2019] EWCA Civ 1052. EU deportation law A...
The Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa route was closed in March 2019. At the same time, two new immigration routes — Innovator and Start-up — came into being. But entry to either scheme rests on the notoriously difficult task of getting an endorsement. Page contentsInnovator – just too big a risk?What...
