The Home Office processed around 166,000 applications for British citizenship last year. Most are granted, but some are refused. The most common reason for refusal is failing the ‘good character’ test. Almost 4,000 bids for citizenship were rejected on this ground last year. That makes up 40% of all refusals,...
In March 2018, the Upper Tribunal promulgated the country guidance decision AS (Safety of Kabul) Afghanistan CG [2018] UKUT 118. The tribunal dismissed AS’s appeal and provided guidance on the suitability of Kabul as a site for “internal relocation”. It broadly held that relocation to Kabul was generally safe and...
The government should guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK through legislation to back up the flawed EU Settlement Scheme, an influential committee of MPs has said. In a report published today, the Home Affairs committee invokes the Windrush scandal, says that “lessons must be learned to...
An influential government advisory group has recommended a major expansion of the list of jobs that get priority for work visas. The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a crack team of economists that advises the government on immigration, published its recommendation for a new Shortage Occupation List yesterday. Assuming it is...
It’s not often these days that we see a positive result from the Court of Appeal, but just before the bank holiday two out of three Lord Justices declared that Home Office policy on assessing the age of asylum seekers is unlawful. The case is BF (Eritrea) v Secretary of...
Theresa May has just announced her resignation. She will leave office on 7 June 2019, leaving a legacy indelibly associated with two things: Brexit and immigration. The gridlock on the former being, infamously, a function of her obsession with the latter, let us look at what May’s many years of...
The National Audit Office, a government watchdog, has released an authoritative report on the long-running English language testing scandal. The discovery in 2014 that there was widespread cheating on the English tests required for UK visas led to a Home Office crackdown affecting tens of thousands of people, many of...
The Court of Appeal has handed down guidance on “limbo” cases in RA (Iraq) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 850. These are cases where a migrant cannot be removed from the UK because, for example, conditions in their country of origin prevent it...
R (ERA) v Basildon And Thurrock Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWHC 1249 (Admin) is about whether someone who has applied for leave to remain in the UK on human rights grounds can get the same exemption from NHS charges as asylum seekers. The National Health Service (Charges to Overseas...
Hot on the heels of the decision in Sajjad comes another mind-bending Home Office decision on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa extensions, this time relating to job creation. In R (Khajuria) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1226, an Indian entrepreneur had created the jobs necessary to extend her visa but her application...
The 2016 referendum sent shockwaves through the European community in the UK, but now that the dust has settled, the picture is far less alarming than appeared at first. Various groups who seemed particularly vulnerable in the wake of the vote, including European spouses of British citizens, no longer need...
Welcome to the April 2019 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with a big Court of Appeal decision on “paragraph 322(5)” tax cases and the state of play on the new business visas. There’s just one asylum judgment to review, but several on deportation...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided in joined cases C‑391/16, C‑77/17 and C‑78/17 M, X and X that recognised refugees who commit serious crimes can be lawfully deprived of their refugee status under EU law and that there is no incompatibility on this issue between EU...
At the risk of sounding negative in the middle of Brexit, there’s a lot wrong with the new innovator visa route. The main problem being that it is effectively closed to migrants, certainly those overseas. Previous articles on the innovator route have focused on how the scheme works — and...
On 2 May 2019, the Home Office published updated guidance on “derivative rights of residence”, which includes the rights of Zambrano carers. Buried in the 63-page document is a fundamental change of policy: potential Zambrano applicants must first make a human rights application under British immigration law. In other words,...
The Court of Appeal has given judgment in two linked cases involving victims of trafficking prosecuted in the UK for offences linked to their trafficking: N v R [2019] EWCA Crim 752. In one of the cases, involving a young Vietnamese man prosecuted for cannabis cultivation, the conviction was overturned....
The EU Settlement Scheme is well underway, with 600,000 European citizens and their families having now applied to stay in the UK after Brexit. The scheme appears to have lived up to its billing insofar as the Home Office is looking to grant people settled status rather than refuse it....
Back in January, the Home Office updated and expanded its guidance on the “good character” requirement in British citizenship applications. One of the big changes in the guidance is the long overdue recognition of the existence of Article 31 of the Refugee Convention. As I’ll explain in this post, Article...
Government attempts to tackle illegal working are halting, aimless and ill-adapted to the post-Windrush dispensation, an independent inspection report has found. David Bolt’s latest report says that “the Home Office’s efforts are not really working and may have had the unintended consequence of enabling exploitation and discrimination by some employers”....
This article is about the High Court and Court of Appeal decisions in the leading (and so far only) case on segregation in immigration detention. They are R (Muasa) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2267 (Admin) and R (TM (Kenya)) v Secretary of State for...
At the end of March 2019, the UK government launched its new innovator visa for overseas entrepreneurs and closed the Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) category to new applicants. The innovator visa is aimed at “more experienced business people” who have £50,000 to invest in an innovative business which could be scaled...
The government has announced that a new immigration regulation chief will take office later this year, filling a post left vacant since 2015. John Tuckett, a former submarine commander now in charge of the Marine Management Organisation, will become Immigration Services Commissioner this summer. The role has been vacant since...
The immigration inspector has praised the Home Office for its work on the EU Settlement Scheme for European citizens applying to stay in the UK after Brexit. A new report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration says that the department was “largely justified” in describing the pilot...
There is a growing furore about the poor state of our visa application processes, which seem to have hit an all time low. The application systems for getting a visa, extension, settlement or citizenship are now mostly online and outsourced. But far from becoming more efficient, there is growing evidence...
The European Court of Human Rights has developed Article 5 ECHR beyond domestic law and potentially created a dramatic increase in the amount of damages payable for unlawful detention caused by a breach of detention policy. VM v United Kingdom (No. 2) (application no. 62824/16) is only a decision of...
The Law Commission has extended the deadline for responses to its consultation on simplifying the Immigration Rules to 3 May 2019. It had been due to close on 26 April. The influential law reform body has proposed major revisions to how the Immigration Rules are drafted. The regulations that underpin...
The Home Office has updated its policy on the requirements for accommodation and support to enable people to meet the conditions of their immigration bail. The policy applies whether that bail is granted by the Home Office or by the tribunal. While a new form has been introduced for some...
Three immigration lawyers have been convicted of a host of regulatory offences after raking in millions from incompetent and unsupervised immigration advice. Dan Romulus Dandes, Babbar Ali Jamil and Zia Bi were found guilty of 19 offences of providing unqualified immigration advice and/or services contrary to section 91 of the...
The Upper Tribunal has ruled that holding immigration appeals over video link does not breach European data protection laws. The case is CJ (international video-link hearing: data protection) Jamaica [2019] UKUT 126 (IAC). The appellant, CJ (no relation), came to the UK aged eight on a six-month visit visa. He...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that EU nationals retain their status as workers for six months, even if they have only worked for two weeks in the host country. Case C‑483/17 Tarola v Minister for Social Protection concerned a Romanian national living in Ireland. Mr...
One of the requirements for Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants extending their visas in the UK is to show they have invested £200,000 that they previously showed was available for investment in their initial applications. The important case of R (Sajjad) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 720 is about the ways...
The UK’s inefficient visa system is hurting the country’s reputation as a venue for high-end dispute resolution, according to a legal consultancy. Hook Tangaza says that it has seen “numerous examples” of foreign lawyers being unable to get a UK visa in time to take part in a London-based commercial...
In the short but landmark judgment of R (Hamid) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3070 (Admin), the High Court affirmed that it has the power to oversee the conduct of lawyers in immigration cases. Judges have regularly used the disciplinary process that has evolved out...
We’ve been scooped on this one by The Sun, of all places. As every lefty lawyer’s favourite paper reports, a judge has temporarily abolished the 45-day limit on help for trafficking victims pending a further hearing. Victims of human trafficking are entitled to £65 per week, accommodation at a safe...
In 2011, the landmark case of MSS v Belgium and Greece concluded that conditions in Greece were so dire, asylum seekers’ human rights would be breached if returned. Removals to Greece under the Dublin III Regulation were suspended as a result. Though conditions in Greece remain critical, in December 2016...
When someone pursuing an appeal in the immigration tribunal decides that they no longer want the appeal to go ahead, who gets to decide when the appeal comes to an end? The person themselves, the tribunal, or the Home Office? In July 2017, Mr Justice McCloskey, President of the Upper...
A recent change in the Home Office’s good character policy for citizenship applications is set to have a significant impact on people with a history of overstaying. The department expressly states for the first time that any overstaying in the last ten years will see an application for British citizenship...
