The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers has shone a light on the ongoing difference in the treatment of black and white citizens in the United States. It is right and proper to think also about racism here in the United Kingdom. As an immigration lawyer, I see...
If you’ve been struggling to keep up with the avalanche of immigration news and Home Office U-turns since lockdown began, you’re not alone. I’ve thrown together this immigration track and trace post to catalogue the major immigration law events of the pandemic so far, which includes some concessions that were...
Chucking people out of a country they were born in is hard. It usually takes something pretty dramatic or pretty terrible — or both, as in the case of Azerkane v The Netherlands (application no. 3138/16). The facts Mr Azerkane was born in the Netherlands to Moroccan parents. His parents...
Welcome to episode 77 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we cover a number of positive court decisions on Article 3, no recourse to public funds and immigration fees. We then mention the main coronavirus updates before turning to a few bits and pieces from EU law...
With statistical assistance and input by George Symes. A person whose immigration application to the Home Office has been refused sometimes has a right of appeal. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, people essentially had a choice. Their appeal could be heard in person, at court, in front of a judge...
A solicitor caught on camera advising an undercover reporter about a sham marriage has failed in a High Court bid to overturn his subsequent ban from the profession. The case is Naqvi v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2020] EWHC 1394 (Admin). Syed Mazaher Naqvi was struck off last year for professional...
Lawyers have uncovered internal Home Office guidance on detaining vulnerable migrants. Duncan Lewis Solicitors and Garden Court Chambers secured the previously unpublished documents, which discuss how the Adults at Risk policy should be interpreted and applied, via a hard-fought Freedom of Information request. The gist of the guidance is that...
The European Court of Human Rights has declined an invitation to extend the jurisdiction of the Convention to cover applications made for a visa to enter a given country and claim asylum. In M.N. and Others v. Belgium (application no. 3599/18), the Strasbourg court ruled that an application brought by...
Asylos and ARC Foundation recently released a new report, Vietnam: Returned victims of trafficking, about the risks of re-trafficking, state protection and internal relocation for Vietnamese victims of trafficking returned from the UK. The report provides key new evidence which needs to be considered by Home Office decision-makers and tribunal...
The EU Settlement Scheme promised convenience and efficiency for those required to secure their immigration status in the UK after Brexit. Yet statistics retrieved from the Home Office indicate that at least 36,000 applications had faced delays of over three months by October 2019. In this post, we explore what...
New research by Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) on detention during the pandemic “lays bare a catalogue of failings”, the charity says. With the authorities insisting on keeping detention centres open despite health concerns, BID has been working on individual immigration bail applications. It represented 55 people between 23 March...
Revised Home Office guidance should make it easier for migrants with family visas to claim benefits if necessary. The change follows a recent High Court decision which John has explained in some detail, along with the wider context of no recourse to public funds (NRPF). As of today, the updated...
Furious legal aid lawyers have taken their dispute with the Ministry of Justice to the next level with a judicial review aimed at reversing forthcoming changes. Duncan Lewis Solicitors have sent a letter before action challenging the payment structure for remote immigration appeals during the pandemic. A new system for...
The sheer surrealism of an immigration lawyer’s job can perhaps only truly be understood by MC Escher’s architect or Salvador Dali’s landscape designer: you do your best to navigate the impossible, but you can’t help being occasionally hit in the face by a massive melting clock. Here are ten of...
The Home Office put just under 300 new people in immigration detention during the coronavirus pandemic, figures released today suggest. Between the start of the UK lockdown on 23 March and the end of April, 295 people entered immigration detention, according to a new statistical report on Covid-19 and the...
The Court of Appeal has rejected a challenge to the £1 an hour rate of pay for detainees who undertake work in immigration removal centres. In R (Badmus) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 657 the court maintained the decision reached by the High Court...
No recourse to public funds (‘NRPF’) is a condition imposed on the majority of UK visa holders preventing them from claiming benefits. In R (W, A Child By His Litigation Friend J) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2020] EWHC 1299, the High Court found the...
The High Court has looked further at when details of an asylum claim can be shared in family proceedings. The judgment in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No. 2) [2020] EWHC 1036 (Fam) applies previously established principles to a particular set of circumstances. It follows on...
A High Court judge has granted immigration bail to an Afghan detainee and made findings which will be helpful to those representing other detainees seeking release during the COVID-19 crisis. The short judgment in (R) Khan v SSHD CO/1366/2020 provides an example of how judges should proceed in light of...
Reports by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, now follow a familiar pattern. Mr Bolt and his team carry out an inspection of a certain area of Home Office activity. A report on possible areas of improvement is drawn up and sent to the department for...
Last year saw a “significant reduction” in charter flights to remove migrants from the UK, a watchdog reported this week — but those so removed are still physically restrained more often than is necessary. In the latter respect, the 2019 annual report of the Independent Monitoring Boards Charter Flight Monitoring...
Twitter’s political correspondents are abuzz with the news that the government has made its second NHS-and-immigration U-turn in 24 hours: Woah . Big victory for @Keir_Starmer No10 spokesman: pic.twitter.com/AHWInadgUK — Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) May 21, 2020 A select coterie of journalists tend to get privileged access to such announcements, but...
The DeSouza case raised complex issues of citizenship, identity and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, but at the heart of the case was an immigration matter and a family who have faced a brutal uphill struggle to live together in the UK, like so many others. Last week, the...
The Upper Tribunal has found that the Home Office’s policy for waiving the immigration application fee for destitute immigrants — the fees can add up to thousands of pounds for a family — is unlawful and needs to be widened. The judgment is R (Dzineku-Liggison & Ors) v Secretary of...
This morning the government released immigration statistics covering January to March 2020. Although the UK did not officially begin its lockdown until the fourth week in March, the coronavirus effect is “already visible” in the data. Take student visa applications. They had been rising for some time: Tier 4 applications...
On 19 May 2020, a number of media outlets reported that there will be no face-to-face lectures at Cambridge University until summer 2021. The university issued a statement the next day in which it said there had been “partial reporting of only one aspect of our plans”. It clarified that:...
Even by Home Office standards, the decision to defend the case of R (Nmai) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 1139 (Admin) looks particularly pointless. The claimant had an incredibly strong case and the judge allowed the claim with little hesitation. By allowing it to get...
With the UK still reeling from COVID-19, a mega recession looms. The statistics are sobering; 8 million workers on the government furlough scheme, 2.6 million claims for Universal Credit since the lockdown began and the economy already suffering its biggest contraction since the financial crash in 2008. The economic outlook...
There has been some discussion about the legal basis for coronavirus visa extensions and whether the application process gives the applicant the protection of section 3C. These doubts were originally raised at a time when the application was via email. Now a form-based application process, of sorts, exists. It is...
The requirement for criminal defendants to give their nationality in court is corrupting the justice system and gives the impression of bias against ethnic minorities, a new report has found. Commons, a non-profit criminal defence firm, says that the rule — authorised by section 162 of the Policing and Crime...
The coronavirus pandemic could cause more refugees to flee to Europe, a European Union report has warned. The European Asylum Support Office says that an ISIS resurgence and other conflicts linked to the outbreak may see European countries handling more asylum claims. The Asylum Trends and COVID-19 report, published on...
Immigration lawyers are warning that changes to legal aid for appeals lodged online during the coronavirus pandemic “will do irreparable harm”. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) says that adjustments to legal aid rates will deter lawyers from taking on the most complex cases and push already cash-strapped legal aid...
The Home Office has decided to make it more difficult for European residents to become British citizens. EU citizens with settled status who apply for naturalisation may now have to provide evidence that they have been living in the UK legally, according to an update to government nationality policy released...
If you can say one thing about the Home Office, it’s that they have questionable priorities! In the middle of a pandemic, with thousands of migrants not knowing whether or not they will have to leave the UK in just over two weeks, the department has decided to publish a...
Welcome to episode 76 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with an important case concerning the hostile environment and the latest hardline deportation decisions. We then discuss immigration detention, including a case on the impact of coronavirus, before covering benefits, removals of migrants with children,...
