The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has settled its legal action with the government over the EU Settlement Scheme following changes to the system. The revisions address concerns that the detailed rules for the scheme would allow the Home Office to deny settled status to more EU...
Just weeks from the date that the EU and UK’s divorce is due to take place, the position of UK travellers to the EU remains foggy. The clock is ticking and Prime Minister May is still caught between the EU and her own government, struggling to reach an agreement that...
In R (Majewski) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 473 (Admin) the High Court has concluded that EU citizens who were unlawfully detained solely because they were homeless should be paid damages at the normal rate. In the important Gureckis judgment of December 2017, the High Court had ruled that...
Luis Lopes came to the UK aged 6. As a teenager, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and unlawful wounding, receiving four years’ youth detention. The Home Office wanted to deport him. The First-tier Tribunal blocked deportation but was overturned by the Upper Tribunal...
Over the next 12 months, the government will be rolling out a whole package of measures designed to enhance the UK’s global image. These will include both new and relaxed immigration options for innovators, tech experts, scientists, researchers, artists and sportspersons. The Home Office’s approach to visiting artists and sportspersons...
The President of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in OA and others (human rights; ‘new matter’; s.120) Nigeria [2019] UKUT 65 (IAC) has added another layer of complexity to an already biased and convoluted system. Readers are probably au fait with when the Secretary of State’s consent is required for an...
Since the case of R(C) v First-tier Tribunal [2016] EWHC 707 (Admin) the tribunal has been forced to accept that litigation friends can and should be appointed to help those who lack capacity to conduct their own tribunal proceedings. The procedure rules and practice directions are even now yet to...
It is a decade since the UK agreed to lift its immigration reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognising that “migrant” children are, well, children too. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 was enacted to this end, creating a duty for...
Today, the High Court has ruled that the ‘Right to Rent’ checks, a key policy of Theresa May’s so-called “hostile”, now rebranded as “compliant environment”, cause landlords to discriminate against prospective tenants on racial and nationality grounds. Mr Justice Martin Spencer has handed down a damning verdict excoriating the government,...
Today the High Court found in the case of R (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 452 (Admin) that the government’s Right to Rent scheme causes racial discrimination in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Joint Council for the...
I acted for the appellant in the extraordinary case of Guled v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 92, in which the Court of Appeal ruled on the legal status of a deportation order made in 2002. 2002: deportation order made Even by immigration standards, Mr G had a complex case. We...
The High Court has called in the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Director of Public Prosecutions over the conduct of a shambolic citizenship case. The judgment is Jetly & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 204 (Admin). The circumstances of the case are baffling even when laid...
The upshot of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in AK and IK (S.85 NIAA 2002 – new matters) Turkey [2019] UKUT 67 (IAC) is that a person who relies upon a different category of the Immigration Rules to succeed under Article 8 at their appeal or in a section 120 statement,...
The Upper Tribunal has held that the non-EU partner of an EU citizen cannot start accruing time towards permanent residence status until they have a residence card, pointing out the well established distinction between family members and extended family members in EU free movement law. In short: a person married...
I will confess to overlooking this case initially. After all, Sir Stephen Richards introduces his judgment in KK (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 172 by saying “the issue is a narrow one, turning on the specifics of the individual case”. That is...
We’ve finally put the finishing touches to our comprehensive online training course on Appendix FM to the Immigration Rules. This is the bit of the rules dealing with the entry of family members, including spouses, partners, children, parents and grandparents. We cover the evidential requirements at Appendix FM-SE as well,...
In Mohammad Racheed v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] CSIH 8, the Inner House of the Court of Session held that a judicial review challenge to the certification of a human rights claim to remain in the UK as “clearly unfounded” can include new evidence. Mr Racheed,...
Last month, for the first time in my career, I took a client’s appeal to the media instead of the immigration tribunal. Mozaffar Saberi and Rezvan Habibimarand are an elderly Iranian couple (83 and 73) living in Edinburgh. They have four adult British children, 11 British grandchildren and a British...
In this blog post, Judith Reynolds, Research Associate at Cardiff University’s Centre for Language and Communication Research, offers immigration law practitioners some reflections and tips for communicating with foreign language-speaking clients. As all legal practitioners are keenly aware, communicating effectively with clients is central to good legal practice. Being aware of...
In a newly reported judgment the Upper Tribunal has quashed the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse a request from the Greek government to take charge of the asylum claims of a mother and her three children so they could reunite with the father, who lives in the UK. The...
The government has collected less than half the fines issued to employers for hiring undocumented migrants over the past five years, according to a Free Movement estimate using data released under the Freedom of Information Act. The value of illegal working fines handed out to companies, even if reduced by...
The UK government did not begin its deprivation of citizenship policy yesterday, when Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed an order stripping Shamima Begum of her British nationality. The deprivation of citizenship power has been increasingly used in recent years, with 104 citizens deprived of their British nationality in 2017 alone....
Bhandari & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 129 considered some fairly elderly Upper Tribunal case law on fairness and the Points Based System, and in particular a decision of Mr Justice Blake in Patel (Revocation of Sponsor Licence: Fairness: India) [2011] UKUT 211...
With so much focus on whether an asylum seeker has established a well founded fear of persecution in their country of origin, the question of whether their appeal falls to be allowed under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is often given only cursory attention. However, it...
illogical and inconsistent… plainly in error… plainly wrong… tenuous and unsubstantiated… failed to provide any reasoning… there is a basic minimum which is needed and, with respect to the Judge, it is lacking in this case… The Court of Appeal there, taking the “highly unusual” step of allowing an asylum...
The controversial story of British teenager Shamima Begum has dominated the news in recent days. Shamima left the UK in February 2015 to travel to Syria at the age of 15. She was very recently found in a Syrian refugee camp, heavily pregnant, after she had escaped from an Islamic...
The EU Settlement Scheme scheme has been set up by the UK government for European residents to apply for “settled status” after Brexit. It is considered necessary because most citizens of European Union countries will lose their existing legal status in this country after it leaves the EU. EU citizens who...
The government’s Integrated Communities Action Plan, published on 9 February, is worth a quick look. It is naturally enough published by the department with “Communities” in its name but in fact a lot of the proposed actions are for the Home Office to carry out. One commitment that I think...
R (AC (Algeria)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 188 (Admin) is about how long the Home Office is allowed to delay providing accommodation following the grant of bail in principle by the First-tier Tribunal. Unfortunately, the answer given by the High Court is at least...
Credit where it’s due. In numerous claims and fresh claims for asylum for well over half a decade now, the firm of Barnes Harrild & Dyer has been presenting the Secretary of State for the Home Department with various reports by Professor Emile Joffé giving his expert opinion about the...
In Fatima v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 124, the appellants tried to argue that free movement rules granting some rights to dependent relatives of EU citizens apply where the relatives are dependent on the EU citizen’s spouse instead. The EEA Regulations 2006 say that...
It will not have escaped your notice that today is Valentine’s Day. The day when love, new and old, seems inescapable. Whether it’s lovers gazing into each other’s eyes over candlelight or in moments snatched after the children have been put to bed — even if it’s just saying “I...
The government has published two draft sets of changes to UK immigration law to cater for the UK’s exit from the European Union. They include ending the “Dublin III” system under which asylum seekers are sent back to Calais and elsewhere in mainland Europe, which would be scrapped as early...
Under EU law it is not necessary that a person be working in a member state in order to be entitled to family benefits in respect of his children living in another member state. So ruled the Court of Justice of the European Union in C-322/17 Bogatu v Minister for...
Yesterday’s Sunday Times report that “Commonwealth soldiers don’t earn enough to bring families with them” will come as no surprise to immigration practitioners confronted on a daily basis with British citizen or settled clients who can barely meet the minimum income requirement. My experience of representing over a dozen Commonwealth...
Legal aid lawyers have never had an easy ride, but over the last few years since the introduction of CCMS and LASPO the iniquities and frustrations of working in this sector have grown exponentially. CCMS and LASPO may still be with us, but following two separate challenges to the operation...
