Speeches at the Criminal Law Review Conference are not natural reading material for immigration lawyers, but Lady Justice Rafferty’s contribution is of wider interest. It is about the merits of brevity and clarity in legal writing. This is a core concern for us as a legal blog — and perhaps...
The High Court has ruled that a claimant is entitled to extra unlawful detention damages for frustration and anxiety where the Home Office fails to provide a release address. The guidance on this issue provided by R (Diop) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 3420 (Admin)...
When Sergei and Yulia Skripal were near-fatally poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018, suspicion immediately fell upon the Russian state. The British government released footage of the men said to be responsible and the aliases under which they secured UK visit visas. But it took a website called...
Brexit notwithstanding, 2018 is likely to be remembered as the year the lid was blown on the government’s hostile environment policy. The debate about how difficult we want the lives of migrants unlawfully in the UK to be has now caught the attention of the mainstream media. It is therefore...
Some holiday reading for those who just can’t get enough citizens’ rights. Seraphus Solicitors has put together a comprehensive list of materials on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK, almost all of whom will be affected by Brexit. It includes not just the key documents on the...
Most of us take for granted that we will spend Christmas with our families. Many others, thanks to the Immigration Rules, will not. The financial requirements for securing a partner visa now mean that, across the UK, settled residents and British citizens will spend Christmas on Skype with loved ones...
Appendix EU of the Immigration Rules was introduced at the end of August 2018 to implement the post-Brexit settled status scheme which will enable EU citizens and their family members living in the UK to remain after Brexit. When reviewing the new rules, eagle-eyed immigration lawyers may have noticed that...
There is one, overwhelming, message from the immigration White Paper published on 19 December. It is mentioned in the Foreword by the Prime Minister, and the Foreword from the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The aims of the White Paper are: to bring an end to free movement...
The immigration health surcharge will double on 8 January 2019. The extra fee paid by visa applicants to fund the NHS will rise to £400 a year, up from £200, for applications made on or after that date. Students and those on the Youth Mobility Scheme pay £300 (up from...
Reading the case of R (Prathipati) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (discretion – exceptional circumstances) [2018] UKUT 427 (IAC), it is impossible not to feel deep admiration for Ms Prathipati. The 28-year-old Indian citizen appeared without a lawyer before Mr Justice Kerr in her application for judicial...
Welcome to the November 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we again take it from the top with the Supreme Court’s latest attempt to cut through the complexity of our immigration law before turning to a major High Court decision on trafficking. November also saw...
The long awaited Immigration Bill has finally been published. Its mission: to end the free movement rights of nearly four million EU citizens and their family members in the UK. There is as yet no proposed commencement date for when it will take legal effect. The full short title is...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was laid on 20 December 2018. It follows hard on the heels of another set published on 11 December, but these latest changes are to do with the EU Settlement Scheme rather than ranging across the immigration system. The Home Office...
Michal Netyks was convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to a short period of imprisonment. On the day of his release, at which point he had packed his belongings, he was served with Home Office papers telling him he was to be deported and that he would be detained...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that appeal decisions made using the 2005 Fast Track Rules are not necessarily unfair and unlawful, even though the procedural rules generated an inevitable risk of unfairness in a significant number of cases. This means that the potential unfairness in each appeal decision must...
The government has published its plan spelling the end of free movement. A long-awaited white paper on post-Brexit migration proposes that EU workers would in future have to earn a minimum salary in a job requiring A-level qualifications or above to be sponsored for a UK work visa. “Low-skilled” workers...
An early Christmas present from the Home Office, which has announced the establishment of a team to review new evidence in all pending immigration appeals. The department is now actively encouraging immigration lawyers to submit any new evidence relevant to pending cases, with a view to dropping hopeless appeals before...
Regular readers of this blog will, by now, be well aware of the Supreme Court’s decision in KO (Nigeria) which determined the correct approach in immigration cases involving children who are either British or who have lived in the UK for seven years. However many, particularly those outside Scotland, may...
In R (FB and NR) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKUT 428 (IAC), the appellants challenged the legality of the Home Secretary’s removals policy (traditionally known as Chapter 60 of his Enforcement Guidance and Instructions, now titled Judicial reviews and injunctions). Specifically, the challenge tackled the...
The High Court has rejected an attempt to lower the standard of proof for accepting that a person is the victim of human trafficking. Shu Shin Luh of Garden Court Chambers, fresh off a big win for trafficking victims last month, argued that someone seeking a “conclusive grounds decisions” that...
Many of us have been in the situation where, having challenged the opening of a removal window without a decision having made on an outstanding human rights claim, an 11th hour decision comes from the Secretary of State, along with submissions that our claim is now academic. Where the decision...
If you are an EEA/EU citizen or their family member and wish to qualify for an EU law right of residence, then eventually a right of permanent residence, you have to meet certain requirements. For some people — chiefly those not working or self-employed — one of those requirements is...
AM (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2706 demonstrates the Court of Appeal’s increasing tendency to find any reason to reject the appeals of foreign criminals. AM is an individual deserving of no sympathy. He has been convicted of raping a 17 year old...
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v SM (Rwanda) [2018] EWCA Civ 2770 the Court of Appeal has ruled that an invalid grant of bail by the First-tier Tribunal has no legal effect. Under the old Immigration Act 1971 bail system the First-tier Tribunal was not able to...
A statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published today, 11 December 2018. The main changes are to introduce the pilot scheme for short-term agricultural workers that was announced earlier this year, and to expand the domestic violence settlement scheme to cover refugees. The more fundamental changes to Tier...
The Home Office has rowed back last week’s announcement that the Tier 1 (Investor) route was suspended with near-immediate effect. It was widely reported last Thursday that the route would be closed to new applications from midnight the next day due to concerns over money laundering, but the department provided...
The High Court has ruled that the regulations for charging non-residents in advance for non-urgent NHS treatment are lawful. In R (MP) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2018] EWHC 3392 (Admin), decided yesterday, the court rejected a claim that the government had a duty to consult...
R (J1) v Special Immigration Appeals Commission & Anor [2018] EWHC 3193 (Admin) looked at the correct interpretation of two sections of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Section 76(1) of that Act says: The Secretary of State may revoke a person’s indefinite leave to enter or remain in...
Following on from the new lines to take on Sudanese asylum claims that I wrote about in July, the Home Office has now produced evidence in an effort to support the change in policy. Officials have been arguing recently that while non-Arabs are likely to be at risk in the...
A disciplinary statement from the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office: The Lord Chancellor and the Senior President of Tribunals have issued Judge Mark Davies of the First-Tier Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber, with formal advice following a complaint that he made a remark in court which suggested he holds a prejudicial...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has found that the UK can cancel Brexit by withdrawing its Article 50 notification, without having to get the permission of other EU countries. The result in case C‑621/18 Wightman and Others means that, if political circumstances change soon, the UK could...
Claiming asylum can be a traumatic experience. Having to relive the worst events in your life while you undergo a series of interviews and hearings is bad enough. It is even worse when Home Office officials are highly sceptical about a young person’s account, based on a selective or mistaken...
The ETS saga continues and the latest edition is the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Rahman v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1572. (Editor’s note: we may have been a tad premature in declaring that “The ETS English language testing saga is over“.) The judgment...
We expected a full statement of changes to the Immigration Rules to be laid before Parliament yesterday but instead we got a statement about the statement. The immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, gave us a sneak preview of a range of tweaks to the rules that will be laid “shortly”. The...
The immigration inspector has ended 2018 as he began it, with a critical report on the Home Office’s internal “country of origin information” that guides asylum decisions. This time around, Mr Bolt effectively accuses the department of failing to take the issue seriously. This inspection report, published on 5 December,...
The Red Cross has published a new report on what they call the “move on” period for refugees, which is the period of 28 days between when they get formally recognised as a refuge and issued with status papers and the end of their centrally administered asylum support housing and...
The government has today published a plan for the rights of EU citizens living in the UK if there is no Brexit deal. It would continue the existing EU Settlement Scheme but make it less generous than if it were bound by the terms of the draft Withdrawal Agreement with...
Blanket media coverage today of the highly respected National Audit Office’s report into the Home Office’s Handling of the Windrush situation. “Situation” is one of those Whitehall irregular verbs: I have an issue, you have a situation, they have a scandal. Lawyers may also quibble with the NAO’s use of...
