Lawyers representing an Albanian woman suffering from appalling sexual exploitation have secured improvements in the system for reconsidering whether someone is a victim of human trafficking. Mr Justice Kerr found that the policy, which required officials to ignore new evidence if it didn’t come from approved sources, was wildly unlawful...
An experienced immigration judge’s ruling in an asylum case gave the impression that he “considers all asylum seekers to be liars”, the Upper Tribunal has found. The case is MR v Secretary of State for the Home Department PA/02377/2019. Upper Tribunal Judge Martin described the First-tier Tribunal decision in the...
The Upper Tribunal has ruled that human rights appeals may be allowed on the ground that the Secretary of State has unlawfully failed to acknowledge that the appellant is a victim of trafficking. DC (Trafficking, Protection/Human Rights appeals : Albania) [2019] UKUT 351 (IAC) provides little guidance on how tribunals...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that it is unlawful to completely withdraw all housing and financial support from an asylum seeker, even if they have breached the rules of an accommodation centre. In Case C-233/18 Haqbin v Federaal Agentschap voor de opvang van asielzoekers, the...
Bureaucrats are not generally known for their creative thinking. But show a Home Office immigration official an application for asylum or a visa and watch their imagination run riot. All these are real excuses, communicated in official government letters, for declining a visa, refusing asylum or disbelieving some aspect of...
Ian Macdonald QC has passed away. He was the founder and father of immigration law in this country. He literally wrote the book when in 1983 he published the first edition of the now legendary Macdonald’s Immigration Law & Practice. It is now in its ninth edition. Ian Alexander Macdonald...
Following on from the Court of Appeal’s recent human rights “cheatsheet” in GM (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, we now have a gem of a sequel that is Lal v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1925. In this case, Ms...
What happens when someone doesn’t receive a decision sent to them by the Home Office that affects their right to continue living in the UK? The answer to this question depends on what attempts were made to send the decision to the person and whether this constituted “deemed service”. Deemed...
A post by a young Cambridge academic refused indefinite leave to remain after spending a year abroad has triggered a viral Twitter outpouring of indignation and support – but did the Home Office get it wrong? Today I’ve been in the UK for 10 years, 1 month, 2 weeks, 3...
You wait ages for a new visa route and three come along at the same time… Hot on the heels of the announcements earlier this summer of new visas for graduates and for scientists comes today’s news that the Conservatives are planning to introduce a “NHS visa” as part of...
Douglass Simon Solicitors, a highly regarded and established firm, seeks an ambitious Immigration solicitor to be based at our Richmond office. Richmond is an affluent area easily accessible by public transport. The firm: We are a well-established and multi-office practise. We have been serving the community for over two decades....
For politicians with an agenda to push and votes to win, talking up an “Australian-style points based system” seems like a catchy, quick-fix solution to public anxiety over immigration. During the referendum campaign it was a popular trope of the leave campaign, trotted out endlessly, with little explanation as to...
The controversial English Court of Appeal long residence case of Ahmed has now been endorsed north of the border by the Court of Session in Mbomson v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] CSOH 81. Lord Malcolm’s decision is short: although not bound by the Court of Appeal’s...
The Home Secretary has conceded that the investigation into abuse at Brook House immigration removal centre will now be a full public inquiry. The announcement follows a High Court decision in June 2019 that an ombudsman’s report was insufficient under human rights law. Lawyers for the victims welcomed the news,...
While the UK government boasts of its trailblazing work to tackle the scourge of modern slavery, it is also rightly criticised for its systemic failures to prevent exploitation and protect victims once identified. A number of hostile immigration policies are directly at odds with the UK’s commitment to protect victims...
In BF (Albania) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 1781 the Court of Appeal has denied permission to appeal a recent Albanian country guidance case on the risk of persecution faced by gay men there. The Upper Tribunal, while cautious about the rest of Albania, had concluded that gay men could...
In R (Gasztony) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2879 (Admin), the High Court has ruled that substantial periods of a mentally ill man’s detention were unlawful because the Home Office took too long to arrange suitable alternative accommodation. However, the claimant was detained for over...
A right of residence in the UK can be purchased with a six-figure investment. Until a few years ago, the amount required was £1m. While new investment visas can no longer be obtained at that price — the minimum investment has doubled — existing holders of a Tier 1 (Investor)...
What’s the spookiest part of the immigration system? Colin asked via Twitter on Halloween, and you answered. Here’s seven of the best ideas for immigration law-themed Halloween costumes. 1. Spookified documents Specified Documents, no question about it — Julian Norman (@Julian_Norman1) October 31, 2019 Scary rating: 🎃🎃. See Failure to...
The Court of Appeal has overruled both immigration tribunals and found that members of the Tamil Tigers who were detained but escaped are at risk of persecution in Sri Lanka. The judgment in RS (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1796 betrays the...
Following on from my McGill & Co. colleague Darren’s recent post on the consequences of overstaying, I thought I would illustrate his point with a few case studies. The following examples are all derived from real cases that I have recently dealt with. Names and other identifying details have been...
An immigration detainee who has indefinite leave to remain must apply to their local council for housing benefit rather than for a bail address or asylum support provided by the Home Office. R (AT (Guinea))) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2709 (Admin) is about the...
With the Brexit psychodrama continuing to monopolise airtime and public attention, it would be easy to overlook the government’s recent announcement of a new visa route for foreign students in the UK. Providing a bit of relief from the general doom and gloom, it promises a return to the halcyon...
The Home Office acted unlawfully when accommodating a Nigerian asylum seeker and her young children in a studio flat for about 14 months, the High Court has found. The judgment in R (O) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2734 (Admin) found that the department failed...
Just when you thought the rule excluding chefs at take-away restaurants from the Tier 2 Shortage Occupation List had been tested to destruction, there arrives yet another valiant attempt to navigate this uber-niche corner of a corner of the Immigration Rules in R (Imam) v Secretary of State for the...
The Home Office has confirmed that it counts repeat applications to the EU Settlement Scheme as new applications, as first revealed last week on Free Movement. It appears that thousands of repeat applications from EU citizens already granted pre-settled status have been counted towards the total number of applications. This...
Another statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 170) was laid on 24 October 2019. The changes relate to Appendix EU of the Rules and their functioning in a no-deal Brexit scenario. This is somewhat surprising given recent events. Jacob Rees-Mogg said in Parliament on the same date that...
Last year, the Upper Tribunal refused to recognise my client PK as a refugee, despite acknowledging the risk of a Ukrainian conscript being associated with organisations committing acts contrary to international humanitarian law. This resulted in the dismissal of numerous other appeals of the same nature after the Secretary of...
Someone sentenced to more than four years’ imprisonment is in the most serious category of offender for the purposes of deportation law, no matter how long ago that sentence was, the Court of Appeal has confirmed. The case is OH (Algeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019]...
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt Law is frequently a question of deadlines. Points fixed in a calendar, some optimistically scribbled in, some tattooed on a limb. If you are lucky, the deadline is malleable. People...
The unrelentingly, unremittingly reasonable advocate of evidence-based policy making Jonathan Portes has written an unrelentingly, unremittingly reasonable book about what the evidence tells us about immigration policy. Called What do we know and what should we do about immigration, it is part of a so-far short series published by SAGE...
Welcome to episode 69 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This is a bumper Brexit issue: we’ll be covering the government’s policy on ending free movement for EU citizens, in addition to a healthy crop of cases on EU immigration law while we’ve still got it. There are also...
The Home Office released a new set of EU Settlement Scheme statistics in early October. While this update again showed a rise in applications to the scheme, it also suggests re-applications to it are counted towards the total. This raises questions over the quality and transparency of statistical reporting about...
The High Court has decided that rule 35(2) of the Detention Centre Rules is not unlawful, despite acknowledging the overwhelming evidence that it has failed to protect the welfare of detainees who are at risk of suicide. In R (IS (Bangladesh)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019]...
Between October 2018 and April 2019, I and a dozen other law students observed 55 immigration bail hearings at Taylor House in London. Our research demonstrates some areas in which immigration detainees are being failed by the civil justice system. The resulting report, which includes an architectural perspective on the...
A grant of refugee status usually involves acceptance that a particular set of circumstances exist which would make it unlawful for a person to be returned to their country of origin. But circumstances change, and this can have a knock-on effect on whether someone continues to qualify as a refugee....
September and October are important and busy enrolment periods for Tier 4 student visa sponsors. Immigration compliance teams had enough to contend with this academic year with the introduction of passport eGates, which means having to find evidence of each student’s date of entry to the UK where they have...
The Court of Appeal has held that the UN Refugee Convention should not be interpreted to include an implied type of derivative refugee status for the family members of refugees. As a result, anyone who was granted refugee status under UK law as the family member of a recognised refugee...
In Savran v Denmark (application no. 57467/15) the European Court of Human Rights has reinforced the importance, in Article 3 medical treatment cases, of the obligation on governments to obtain assurances where there is any doubt as to the impact of removing a seriously ill migrant to another country. The...
