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...
Always a worry (but never a surprise) when Court of Appeal judges start off a judgment by saying that the case “has a tortuous procedural history”, is “highly technical” and involves “Byzantine… provisions” of immigration law. Firdaws v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1310 is...
A real mammoth of a case: R (HS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2070 (Admin). The claimant took what looks like a kitchen sink approach to his unlawful detention claim, succeeding on the fourth ground: that he wasn’t given the “true reason” for his arrest...
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v MS (Somalia) [2019] EWCA Civ 1345, the Court of Appeal has held that the Home Office can cease refugee status where there has been a change of circumstances in the refugee’s country of origin such that it is possible for them...
Freedom from Torture is undertaking new research into the challenges torture survivors face throughout the asylum process and how these impact the outcome of their claim. The aims are to raise awareness of the particular issues faced by survivors in the asylum interview and to advocate for improved practices within...
An old case, this, but it’s only just appeared on Bailii: SC (Bangladesh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 3069. The issue was whether the public interest considerations in sections 117B(2) and (3) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (as amended) can be...
This autumn will see a decided shift in immigration policy toward being more welcoming to non-EU academics, scientists and researchers; a group commonly defined by the somewhat worn-out phrase, “the brightest and the best”, first coined by David Cameron in October 2011. The upcoming rule changes will see the removal...
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children often get short term leave to remain in the UK for only 30 months or until they turn 17-and-a-half, whichever is the shorter period of time. While they may get extensions at the end of such periods often they simply get removed from the country. Thus, age...
Government press offices are adept at milking good news. The Ministry of Justice’s self-congratulatory press release announcing the restoration of immigration legal aid for unaccompanied children comes over a year after the department first made this announcement. Justice minister Paul Maynard said: It is absolutely right that legal aid should...
Post: Immigration caseworker / solicitor Reports to: Immigration supervisor Salary: £21,000 to £27,000 p/a (depending on experience and level of accreditation) Hours: 35 hours per week Leave: 28 days including bank holidays Location: Sheffield (with regular visits to ATLEU’s London office) This newly-created role aims to increase ATLEU’s provision of...
“I have a client,” said the tax lawyer with splayed finger tips connected, “and this client may or may not have deposited half a million pounds into a bank account in the Cayman Islands in the 1980s”. The room erupted with hearty laughs and knowing nods across the boardroom table....
The Supreme Court handed down its second judgment in the long-running case of Franco Vomero today. The latest instalment is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Franco Vomero [2019] UKSC 35. The facts Mr Vomero is Italian. He moved to the UK and married a British citizen in...
If a foreign criminal wins their deportation appeal, can the Home Office try and deport them again, even where there has been no further offending? In MA (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1252, the Court of Appeal considered this question and held that...
The High Court has ruled that the Home Office can ignore a grant of immigration bail by the First-tier Tribunal if there is a material change of circumstances before the person is released. R (AB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 1969 (Admin) is about the...
Boris Johnson is the new leader of the Conservative Party, and our next Prime Minister. How might he change the UK government’s policy on immigration? An important question, and when it comes to Johnson potentially a Sisyphean task, given his reputation as someone who will say whatever he thinks will...
Campaign group the3million has raised £50,000 in crowdfunding to support a legal challenge to the government’s handling of the European elections. The organisation says that widespread reports of EU citizens being unable to vote for members of the European Parliament in May were the government’s fault. It wants a declaration...
Over 900,000 people have applied for EU settled status so far. By the end of June 2019, the Home Office had processed 806,000 applications, granting full settled status in 65% of cases and pre-settled status in 35% of cases. The department says that nobody has been refused status outright. There...
Welcome to episode 66 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. CJ has just been on a podcasting course and you may notice a few differences this month, including some intro music. This month we start in the Supreme Court with its decision on the Worker Registration Scheme. We then...
The First-tier and Upper Tribunals seem to have gone rather badly wrong in the case of MAB (Iraq) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1253, involving an Iraqi doctor who was formerly employed to care for prisoners by Iraqi military intelligence. The Court of...
Mystery solved. Business immigration lawyers were nonplussed by Wednesday’s urgent amendment to the rules on sponsoring migrant workers, which emphasised that the “Home Office will not license organisations whose actions and behaviour are non-conducive to the public good”. As Nichola asked, why now? It turns out that the change was...
In immigration law, deadlines are important. They also frequently cause confusion. Sound familiar? That may be because this is how I began a post last month following the Upper Tribunal case of Bhavsar. The Upper Tribunal has now published another case demonstrating the importance of, and confusion caused by, deadlines...
The Home Office regularly updates the guidance documents that it issues to approved visa sponsors, and those thinking of becoming one, under Tiers 2, 4 and 5 of the Points Based System. Tier 4 covers sponsors of international students and Tiers 2 and 5 relate to those coming to the...
The immigration detention system continues to discriminate against migrants with mental health conditions, in breach of the Equality Act 2010, the Court of Appeal has held. The case is R (ASK) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1239. The appeal concerned two men, known as...
In the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v PG (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 1213 the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of “unduly harsh” in deportation cases, overturning the decisions of both of the tribunals that had previously heard the appeal. In this post we look...
A cross-party group of MPs has published a highly critical report on the Home Office’s treatment of visit visa applicants from Africa. It forms part of an ongoing inquiry into the high level of visa refusals for Africans seeking to visit the UK for professional or business reasons. The report,...
The Court of Appeal has taken a restrictive approach to the admission of new evidence before the Upper Tribunal that was not available before the First-tier Tribunal. The case is Kabir v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1162. In Kabir, the First-tier Tribunal had refused...
In the fraught context of Brexit, the need to register EU citizens already resident in the UK presents a major conundrum of policy, law, and administration. The government’s answer is the EU Settlement Scheme. It is expected that millions of people, from a wide variety of different backgrounds, will apply...
