All Articles

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! As predicted, “small boats week” didn’t exactly dominate news coverage last week, despite reports of further deaths. A couple of articles worth reading are Lizzie Dearden’s one on Home Office officials’ doubts over the government’s small boats plan and Enver Solomon in the Guardian on why “smash the gangs”...

12th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Work Rights Centre has published a report “The forgotten third: migrant workers’ views on improving conditions in England’s adult social care sector” which looks at what the migrants who fill as many as 32% of care worker roles in England think about the sector and what needs to change. The...

12th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Colin’s back! But for how long? All is revealed in our October roundup podcast. Plus Sonia and Colin discuss hot topics such as the new practice direction for appeals in the First-tier Tribunal, appeals backlogs, issues in asylum interviews and reaccreditation for the Law Society’s immigration and asylum scheme. We...

12th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Full Time Position Location: Cardiff Salary: £29,000 – £32,000 (depending on qualifications and experience) Start Date: ASAP Job Overview: We are seeking two dedicated and compassionate Immigration, Asylum Case Workers to join our team. You will be responsible for advising and assisting clients with their immigration and asylum applications and...

12th November 2024
BY Free Movement

They grow up so fast. As we will see, Paddington himself has almost certainly reached the age of ursine majority, whatever that might be. When I took my children to see the first Paddington film in 2014, they were aged just two and a half and four. Too young then...

11th November 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The High Court has dismissed a challenge to changes made to late applications to the EU Settlement Scheme which removed the right to appeal where it is not accepted that the applicant had a good reason for applying late (i.e. where the application is rejected as invalid, rather than being...

8th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Asylum seekers who would otherwise face destitution must rely upon support from the government. This support is limited to either £8.86 a week if their accommodation provides meals or £49.18 in other cases which means most will struggle to meet their basic needs. Given this meagre level of support, it...

7th November 2024
BY Katherine Soroya

The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has dismissed the appeal against cancellation of the OISC accreditation of an organisation, Anzan Immigration Lawyers, and its sole adviser Mr Ali Rahmanyfar after a large number of breaches of the code of standards. The case is Anzan Immigration Lawyers v Office of the...

6th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The bad news is that we apparently have to tolerate yet another media contrived “small boats week”. The good news is that this is the exact opposite of a quiet news week and the US election will presumably drown out most other news, whatever...

5th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The skilled worker visa is the main work route under the points based immigration system. It was introduced on 1 December 2020, replacing a visa called Tier 2 (General). Joanna has previously explained the legal requirements for this visa. For example, the role must have a skill level of at...

5th November 2024
BY Nichola Carter

The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) has published a new practice note “Interpreters and Translators” to support compliance with 4.2 of the new code of standards which is to “Provide prompt, clear and competent advice to your clients”. The note states that: A suitable interpreter or translator is...

4th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law (with Bloomsbury Professional and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association) is holding a postgraduate dissertation competition: Calling all recently completed postgraduate students! You are invited to enter the annual postgraduate dissertation competition organised by the Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law. JIANL, the only...

4th November 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Employers in the UK are required to conduct right to work checks to ensure that their employees have the legal right to work. If the employer knows, or ought to know, that the individual does not have permission to work, they can face civil penalties of up to £60,000 and...

4th November 2024
BY Gordana Gligorevic

Closing date Apply by 17:00 on Friday 15th November 2024. About OTB Legal OTB Legal are a specialist UK immigration Law Firm, recognised by the Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners. At our core, we defy the conventional cliché of Solicitors. Our commitment lies in transforming complex immigration laws into...

1st November 2024
BY Free Movement

The Home Office can impose entry bans on people who have previously breached immigration law or used deception in their application for leave. Bans can last one year, two years, five years or ten years. Generally speaking, and except for some minor exceptions, the person will not be allowed to...

1st November 2024
BY Nath Gbikpi

The roll out of eVisas is going about as well as I expected, judging by the state of the forum/social media posts that I have seen. The Home Office has just launched a new form for reporting problems. Once submitted, people should receive a response within ten days either confirming...

31st October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Senior President of Tribunals has issued a new Practice Direction of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal taking effect from 1 November 2024. This replaces the previous version dated May 2022. The new version is considerably longer, up from 12 pages in the previous version to...

31st October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

A Youth Mobility visa enables people aged 18-30 (or 35 for some countries) to live and work in the UK, usually for up to two years. It used to be called the “working holiday-maker scheme” and some people may still call it that. Crucially, there is no requirement to have...

31st October 2024
BY Alex Schymyck

Your client has (at last) got a date for their asylum interview. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot really, and so below I take a look at some of the issues I have encountered in practice and how to approach them so as to get the best possible...

30th October 2024
BY Zofia Duszynska

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Last week the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published a report looking at several regulations including the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2024, part of which is now in force. It appears that the regulations were laid at least in part because applicants...

29th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a report on “An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation November 2023 – June 2024” highlighting the usual problems around lack of stakeholder engagement and data as well as concerns about the lack of Home Office checks on accommodation providers. The...

29th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The UK immigration system as it applies to the creative sector is a complicated hodgepodge of different categories, each with their own requirements and restrictions, advantages and disadvantages. These include visitor-based routes, such as creative visitors, permit free festivals and permitted paid engagements, as well as the now ubiquitous sponsored...

28th October 2024
BY Ross Kennedy

The Court of Appeal failed to seal the applicant’s notice in a case, resulting in an almost two year delay. The applicant was asked to make the application again and request an extension of time. When he did so there was then incredibly another two year delay in the Court...

25th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Law Society is launching its latest round of reaccreditations for senior caseworkers and supervising senior caseworkers in immigration law. Here we take a look at what we know and do not know about the scheme and then turn to how we can help you at Free Movement. Before we...

24th October 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The Supreme Court has held that express reference to the Home Secretary’s guidance on her duty under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 is not required in a decision letter in order to demonstrate that the duty has been complied with. The court also held that...

24th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a decision on an interim relief application in an age assessment judicial review, the Administrative Court has reiterated the requirements of the Civil Procedure Rules on expert evidence and in particular the need to make an application to rely on this as soon as possible. The case is R...

23rd October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

As the crackdown on sponsor licence compliance continues, in R (Tendercare Management Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2154 (Admin) the High Court has considered another case involving the revocation of a care home operator’s sponsor licence. In contrast to previous revocation cases we looked...

23rd October 2024
BY Jack Freeland

Hours: 2 years, full time (37.5 hours) (flexible working requests will be considered) Salary: £32,000 p.a. (dependent on experience) Responsible to: Supervising Solicitor Location: Asylum Aid Office (Old Street, London) / hybrid (minimum 2 days per week in the office) Benefits: 27 days holiday plus 4% matched pension contribution Closing...

23rd October 2024
BY Free Movement

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The government continues to reference Migration Advisory Committee advice in response to questions about expanding the right to work for those waiting for an asylum decision. As I have pointed out before, the committee has recommended that the right to work is not limited to roles on...

22nd October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

On 7 October 2024 the Foreign Secretary made a statement to the House of Commons, explaining that the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius had reached agreement for the UK to agree that Mauritius has sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (the Chagos islands) and that Mauritius would...

22nd October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Internal and cross-border climate and disaster displacement are not under-studied fields. An abundance of research spanning decades depicts a clear global map of the intersecting and multifaceted issues at play, and indeed, many solutions.  However, the legal rights of those who have or will likely move are what hangs in...

22nd October 2024
BY Yumna Kamel

In a well-expressed and clearly heartfelt article, Francis FitzGibbon KC explains over at the London Review of Books why he resigned as an immigration judge. It is full of gems and well worth your time. The process is theoretically adversarial, with each side making its own case competitively until the...

21st October 2024
BY Colin Yeo

Following the article ‘EU Settlement Scheme: automatic extensions and potential curtailments’, published on 30 July 2024, we are now able to provide a bit more insight about current curtailment activity under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), gained from stakeholder engagement with the Home Office. Background The Home Office has the...

21st October 2024
BY Nicole Masri

Spain has been ordered by the European Court of Human Rights to pay a Nigerian woman €15,000 in damages as compensation for failures relating to the investigation of allegations that she was trafficked to Spain for forced prostitution. The case is T.V. v. Spain (application no. 22512/21) and although the...

18th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Refugee Council has a new report out today, “Rescue, Recovery and Reform: Towards an effective asylum system”. The report covers all aspects of the asylum system and makes several sensible recommendations, however I wanted to highlight in particular the ongoing lack of clarity around newly recognised recognised refugees and eVisas....

17th October 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal answers this question in the negative in Secretary of State for the Home Department v George [2024] EWCA Civ 1192. The case also contains some procedurama* about points which can be raised on appeal not previously taken and considers the applicability of points said to be...

17th October 2024
BY Nick Nason
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