The Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland has dismissed an appeal challenging refusal of Schedule 10 accommodation on the grounds that the applicant did not have a bail address, which is what she was asking for by making the Schedule 10 application. The situation endorsed by the Court of Appeal...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It may be a brand new year but the same unresolved issues from 2024 continue to roll on. The first is of course eVisas, and we are now past the point where any remaining biometric residence permits have expired. The latest update is...
In the case of A.R.E. v. Greece (application no. 15783/21) a chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has concluded that there were “strong indications” that there was an unlawful systemic practice by Greece of returning people arriving in the Evros region to Turkey. The decision related to events...
An unregulated adviser, Sebastian Valencia Jefferson, has pleaded guilty to 11 counts of providing unregulated immigration advice and services in breach of section 91 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Jefferson was the sole director and shareholder of Proxima Consulting Group Ltd and he also pleaded guilty on the...
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down judgment in two separate cases in December addressing the subject of family life between adult family members outside the “core” nuclear family of spouses, partners, parents and minor children. The court confirms that “additional elements of dependence, involving more than...
What should happen where young children are carried in a small boat to the United Kingdom and thereby separated from their parents in France? Should the children be returned to France to be reunited with their parents there? Or should the parents be admitted to the United Kingdom to be reunited...
This is a lengthy briefing providing practical advice on how to prepare a case to ensure your client has the best chance of being granted temporary permission to stay for victims of human trafficking or slavery (referred to as “VTS leave”). In this briefing I focus on grants based on...
We are running a two week sale on Free Movement annual and small group memberships for new and lapsed members from 1 to 14 January 2025. The deal is half price for the first year and then membership automatically renews at full price unless cancelled in the meantime. Small groups...
The graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who previously had a student visa to: There is no requirement to have a sponsor in order to apply under this route. The application costs £822...
In order to access legal aid, a difficult enough feat as it is, people need to provide evidence of their financial situation. For most of those in the asylum system, that means asking Migrant Help for assistance. Below I have set out some of the issues and hopefully a recent...
The Court of Appeal has upheld the Home Secretary’s decision to refuse an application made under Appendix EU by an extended family member who had not first obtained a residence document under the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2016. The case is Emambux v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...
We are looking for an experienced Immigration Solicitor to join our highly successful, creative, and dynamic immigration team. The Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre has a much-respected Immigration Team. We are a category 1 Legal Aid Immigration provider and we have considerable experience across the...
The Migration Advisory Committee has published its annual report for 2024. The letter from the Chair, Professor Brian Bell, to the Home Secretary summarised the report as follows: The report discusses the government’s intention to link migration and skills policy and recent UK net migration trends. We explore the relationship...
In a fairly unsurprising decision, the Upper Tribunal has said that indefinite leave to remain obtained by deception and subsequently revoked cannot be counted as “continuous lawful residence” for the purposes of an application for indefinite leave to remain based on ten years’ residence. The case is R (on the...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Statements by UNHCR and ECRE are both must reads in relation to the pause on Syrian asylum claims. A pause seems sensible to me and could be beneficial to those where proceeding with the claim now may otherwise result in a refusal. Many Syrian asylum claims are...
The High Court has said in a written preliminary decision that it was not bound to transfer a judicial review challenging a public order disqualification in a trafficking case to the Upper Tribunal. The court also exercised its discretion to retain the case within the High Court. The case is...
The presidents of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) and First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) have published the Joint Presidential Guidance No. 1 of 2024: Appointment of litigation friends, to help those who lack capacity to conduct their own tribunal proceedings. In the immigration tribunals context, the power...
A rare opportunity for an ambitious and driven Fundraising Lead to join a well respected and impactful human rights organisation to drive growth and challenge abuse in immigration detention. 3 days a week, £40,000 p/a pro-rata, hybrid and flexible working possibilities. Office in Finsbury Park, London. Medical Justice particularly welcomes...
The Upper Tribunal has dismissed a judicial review challenging refusal of a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Migrant application because of a lack of clarity in the loan agreement. The case is R (Waljee) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tier 1, Directors Loan) [2024] UKUT 418 (IAC). The headnote...
The Court of Appeal has said that a child, who is over 21 and has rights of residence based on dependency on their EU citizen parent, does not lose those rights if they start working and are no longer financially dependent on the parent. Essentially, dependency is determined at the...
An unrepresented claimant has been unsuccessful in her challenge to the Home Secretary’s decision to void her indefinite leave to remain application because she submitted a second application to the EU Settlement Scheme. The decision was not communicated to the claimant until it was disclosed during her appeal against the...
An Afghan family who were separated when the father and son ended up in the UK and the mother (divorced from the father) ended up in the US have lost their judicial review challenging refusal under the Afghan Relocations Assistance Policy. The case is HS & Anor, R (On the...
The tribunal statistics for June to September 2024 were published today, covering the first couple of months of the new government. The good news is that the asylum appeals backlog has risen only slightly. The mean waiting time rose from 38 weeks to 42 weeks. With 30,000 asylum appellants entering...
A fifth decision on the same application made under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy has just been quashed on the grounds of unfairness, meaning that a sixth decision will now need to be made. The Foreign Secretary unsuccessfully tried to conceal the names of the civil servants involved. Once...
Cavan Medlock has been found by a court to have prepared a terrorist attack at Duncan Lewis, an immigration law firm, after reading an attack article in the Daily Mail about their work representing refugees. He is too mentally unwell to have been convicted but the court made findings of...
The report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration following the inspection of the immigration enforcement competent authority has been published today, along with the Home Office’s response. The Chief Inspector David Bolt said “on the evidence of this inspection, the IECA has to date placed speed above...
This article sets out the recent changes to the policy on granting people leave to remain once they have received a positive conclusive grounds decision, which is the second and final stage of the trafficking identification process. As discussed previously, the position in relation to grants of leave made to...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! On Wednesday the government made a written statement on eVisas that didn’t contain much that was new, apart from the ability of people to use biometric residence permits that expire on 31 December 2024 to travel up until 31 March 2025 (actually announced in the Guardian...
Immigration applications are extremely expensive. Most requests for permission to stay in the UK (other than under the points based immigration system) now cost £1,258. In addition, applicants may need to pay an immigration health surcharge (£1,035 a year for adults and £776 for children). On average, therefore, migrants will...
The Unity Project (TUP) supports people who are facing poverty and homelessness because their immigration status allows them ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF). We believe NRPF should not exist and we are working to end it. Until then, we seek to minimise its impact by supporting people to make...
Barry returns and joins Sonia to run you through November on Free Movement. It was statistics galore for Sonia who covered the latest immigration, asylum and trafficking figures. A surprise statement of changes contained bad news for Colombians and Ukrainians. Barry was a really big fan of Colin’s review of...
The Upper Tribunal has said that the enhanced protection against deportation of European nationals is available where there is criminal conduct covering both the pre and post-Brexit periods. The tribunal clarified the definition of deportation order at subsection (b) in Annex 1 of Appendix EU, relevant for the purposes of...
In November 2024 there was a significant development in relation to the plight of around 64 people stranded on Diego Garcia, as the Home Secretary announced that she would be offering 61 of them the opportunity to be transferred to the UK. This week, on 2 and 3 December 2024,...
