When the word ‘chaotic’ no longer seems to adequately describe a situation you know things are getting bad. The government’s announcement and subsequent hasty retraction of its intention to end free movement on 1 November 2019 has served only to amplify levels of anxiety amongst EU nationals and the wider...
Here follows a shameless plug for a book to which I have contributed a chapter on deprivation and nullification of British citizenship. It is edited by the excellent Devyani Prabhat at the University of Bristol (do follow her on Twitter) and the various chapters consider the evolution of the contemporary...
The long suffering Migration Advisory Committee, or ‘MAC’ to its friends, has been commissioned to carry out yet another review. Back in June 2019 the MAC were asked by one Home Secretary to think again about salary thresholds for skilled workers. This time they are being asked by a different...
Migrants’ Law ProjectSolicitor/Caseworker/Barrister Salary Band £34,986 – £38,404A salary of £44,373 may be considered for those at Supervisor level with high levels of experience and expertise Annual leave: 25 days per annum plus bank holidays The Migrants’ Law Project are looking for a solicitor, caseworker, or barrister to join our...
A new revised guidance note for judges has been published by some other judges: Joint Presidential Guidance 2019 No 1: Permission to appeal to UTIAC. Paragraph 31 seems wrong to me, or at least inexactly phrased: If a FtT judge considering an application for permission to appeal is in doubt...
The cost of making an immigration or nationality application has risen extremely steeply in recent years. Annual increases of 20% or 25% per year became standard, bringing the current cost of an application for indefinite leave to remain (aka settlement) to £2,389. The actual cost of processing such an application...
The Government yesterday rowed back on the bonkers idea floated by Home Secretary Priti Patel two weeks ago to end free movement of EU citizens into the UK on 31 October 2019. Apart from the obvious problem of having to invent and implement a new immigration system in a matter...
People in immigration detention can make an application for Secretary of State bail directly to the Home Office. The Home Office has the same powers as the immigration tribunal to grant bail and manage its conditions. Is it worth applying? An application to the Secretary of State for immigration bail...
You walk into court, lever arch folders tucked safely under each arm. You’ve tried to be organised and posted copies of your bundles weeks in advance. You’re part way through your submissions, furiously referring to this, that and the other whilst the judge is looking at you with a raised...
The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said last week that free movement for EU nationals will end on 31 October 2019 unless there is a Brexit deal. Media reports indicate that she intends to repeal EU free movement law from day one of a no-deal Brexit, replacing it with new rules...
Following Priti Patel’s recent comments about the immediate end of free movement following a no-deal Brexit, the Home Office sent an email reassuring EU citizens that they will continue to be eligible to remain in the UK so long as they apply for the settled status scheme. What the email...
A solicitor convicted for his part in a notorious visa scam has been struck off. Sheikh Muhammad Usman, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for conspiring to get people leave to remain under false identities, will be unable to resume practise upon release. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said that...
ATLEU job vacancy — Head of Legal Practice Hours: 35 per week (flexible and part-time working considered) Salary: circa £36,000 plus 5% employer pension contribution Leave: 28 days including bank holidays Location: London / Sheffield (regular travel required) This is an exciting opportunity to join the award winning legal charity...
You’ve just had a fantastic summer holiday in, let’s say, Greece — away from the daily grind, the misery of Brexit and British summertime weather. Sunshine every day, beach swimming, late nights, great wine, even better food. You’re basically 90% gyros by this point, but it’s all right, it’s a...
An important Office for National Statistics (ONS) report released this week provides revised figures for EU and non-EU net migration since 2009. Here’s my take on what the key points of the report are. It has been clear for some time that something wasn’t quite right in the headline net...
There have been just four applications for the government’s flagship new visa for overseas entrepreneurs in its first three months of operation. Only four people applied for an Innovator visa between April and June 2019, according to the latest Home Office figures. By contrast, the visa it replaced — Tier...
The Court of Appeal has held that the UK government can be asked to pay expenses where a judicial review has been brought against the Upper Tribunal’s refusal to grant permission to appeal. The test case of Faqiri v Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) [2019] EWCA Civ 151 has...
Since 2016 there has been no minimum CPD training hours requirement and training can be undertaken by any training provider or even by informal methods including self study. The rules for solicitors, barristers and OISC advisers are all broadly similar and were all changed at around the same time. The...
Immigration lawyers often find themselves at the centre of employment law disputes where the employee’s immigration status appears to be crucial to the legality of their employment. In such cases the stakes are usually very high and the pressure on all concerned can be huge. Whilst the employee will be...
The way that I tell clients to treat this kind of evidence gathering process is… don’t treat it as an evidence gathering process. It may sound a little corny, but treat it as a celebration of your relationship so far. You’re telling a story to someone of how you met,...
Confusion abounds after Dominic Cummings sources close to Home Secretary Priti Patel told the Telegraph and Independent over the weekend that free movement of EU citizens would end the day after a no-deal exit on 31 October 2019. While at first glance it seems very unlikely that this means anything...
Asylum appeals will be filed and managed entirely online from next year, the courts and tribunals service for England and Wales has said. HMCTS told Free Movement that it plans to roll out its “reformed digital asylum service” to all hearing centres at the end of January 2020. The digital...
Regulation 33 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1052) does not wrongfully exclude the ordinary principles applicable in interim relief applications. It does not exclude them at all. So held Mr Justice Murray in R (Yuri Mendes) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC...
We’ve been busy working away at creating new CPD immigration training courses and updating our existing ones. Our courses are perfect for CPD for solicitors, barristers and OISC advisers and we now offer over 100 hours of CPD training to our 2,500+ members, covering all aspects and all levels of...
An immigration judge has rejected an asylum seeker’s claim to be gay, saying that the man did not come across as “effeminate” enough to be credible. According to a lawyer involved in the case, the judge wrote that the man did not have a gay “demeanour” and did not “look...
O v R [2019] EWCA Crim 1389 is the latest of a series of appeals brought by victims of trafficking against historic convictions. In this case the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) decided to quash a 2008 conviction because the prosecution had not even considered whether bringing O to court...
Role: Immigration Caseworker/Solicitor Hours: part-time 18.5 hrs Based: at our Coventry Office Salary: negotiable up to £29,704 pro rata based on experience and qualifications We seek an experienced caseworker to manage a specialist immigration and asylum advice service for victims of domestic violence. Central England Law Centre is the UK’s...
Boris Johnson announced seemingly sweeping changes to the UK immigration system for scientists on 8 August 2019. Behind the usual rhetoric about attracting the “brightest and the best”, the reality is a lot less dramatic and potentially a lot less meaningful for the future of science in the UK. If...
Every immigration lawyer in the UK will, at least once in their career, be sat in front of a nonchalant non-visa national (usually American, Canadian or Australian) who is blissfully unaware that they have either overstayed their leave as a visitor, breached the conditions of their leave as a visitor,...
In Rauf v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1276, the Home Office cited the incorrect part of the Immigration Rules in curtailing a student visa. The failure of Mr Rauf’s appeal reminds us that it’s extremely difficult to prove unfairness in immigration cases. Mr Rauf...
Three years after the referendum, the more than three million EU citizens living in the UK still have no clarity on what their legal status will be after Brexit. It is uncertain whether the Brexit deal negotiated by Theresa May’s government (formally known as the Withdrawal Agreement) will ever be...
A small amendment to UK law could soon make a big difference to European families resident here who are struggling to bring home children adopted in Muslim countries abroad. A change to the legal definition of who counts as an EEA citizen’s “family member” should end the uncertainty over the...
The ground of appeal in Hameed v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1324 was: It was wrong to find the appellant had made a false representation under paragraph 322(1A) of the Immigration Rules when he had not acted dishonestly. Mr Hameed had applied for a...
A new Court of Appeal judgment has confirmed that the Home Office wrongly denied that a child asylum seeker seeking transfer to the UK had a brother already living in this country. The Home Office, as is its wont, claimed that the two young men were not related. As Colin’s...
The anonymous protagonist in Secretary of State for the Home Department v BK (Afghanistan) [2019] EWCA Civ 1358 fled Afghanistan for the UK in 2002. He claimed that he had been press-ganged into recruiting for the Taliban, admitting that the role included beating up unwilling villagers. Rejecting his bid for...
The Home Office has issued a correction to the published minimum salary levels for certain roles. An addendum, or urgent update, to the guidance on Tier 2 work visas states: The Tier 2 salary rates listed in Appendix J of the Immigration Rules were amended through Immigration Rules changes in...
The Home Office has updated its main guidance on family visas under Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules. The good news is now we have one consolidated guidance document dealing with both the five and ten-year routes for partners, parents and private life applicants. The new guidance runs to 93...
Seema Kennedy is the new immigration minister at the Home Office, the BBC’s Danny Shaw reports. The MP for South Ribble, who had been a junior minister at the Department of Health, replaces the sacked Caroline Nokes. Nokes apparently read about her impending dismissal on Twitter. Obviously nobody served her...
