Greece has received the largest number of refugees entering Europe since the migrant crisis began and its legal community, already hit by years of austerity, has struggled to cope. Refugee Legal Support – Athens is the response of a few experienced UK immigration lawyers to that crisis, using our legal...
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v MA (Somalia) [2018] EWCA Civ 994 the Court of Appeal grappled with the thorny question of what issues are relevant when a decision-maker is assessing the cessation of refugee status under the Qualification Directive. Article 11(1)(e) of the directive states that...
The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, has announced that a senior barrister of Caribbean extraction will oversee a compensation scheme for victims of the Windrush scandal. Martin Forde QC of One Crown Office Row was named today as the “Independent Person” who will direct the compensation scheme once in place, as...
Ararso v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 845 is an unusual appeal about the extent to which the Home Office must take account of orders made in previous judicial review proceedings when deciding to re-detain someone. The Court of Appeal held that injunctions against removal...
An individual’s right to access information held about them under the Data Protection Act 1998 is arguably one of the greatest legacies of the New Labour government. In immigration law, where complexity abounds and cases often roll on for years through changes in rules and regulatory frameworks, this right is...
Welcome to the March 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month I start on the Brexit outlook for EU citizens before turning to several immigration law issues affecting children that came to light in March. The Upper Tribunal reported a fresh batch of decisions, a couple...
The Home Office has today issued revised guidance that should help asylum seekers and other migrant children in the UK who have been banned from studying under changes introduced at the beginning of the year. The new system of immigration bail that came into force in January means that “many...
The enhanced protection in Article 28(3) of Directive 2004/38/EC — that a person may only be expelled on “imperative grounds of public security” if they have resided in a member state for ten years prior to the decision to expel them — benefits only those who have satisfied the eligibility...
Independent reviews of public institutions are critical by design, which is why almost every report ever published by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is damning of the Home Office to a greater or lesser extent. Today’s review of the government programme for resettling Syrian refugees is a...
Housing solicitor Giles Peaker was an accomplished art historian before turning to the law at the age of 40, rising to become a partner at Anthony Gold within five years of qualification. He founded the Nearly Legal blog while still a paralegal. Initially a repository for reflections on becoming a...
The Windrush scandal has drawn attention to the harshness of UK immigration policy. Many people who lived in the UK for decades have been unable to satisfy the Home Office of their status. They lost jobs, benefits or housing, were told to leave the country, or even deported, despite most...
The government has tabled a number of adjustments to the rules on detention, to come into force this summer. The most significant is the changed definition of “torture” in the context of the detention of vulnerable people. Government forced to change tack on torture The revision comes following the judgment...
Safira,* who identifies as a lesbian woman, grew up in Nigeria. Because of her sexual identity, Safira’s family members abused her, physically and psychologically, in an attempt to “cure” her of what they considered “demonic tendencies”. Her family eventually disowned her, and she was rejected by her church. When she...
Until recently, self-employed Turkish businesspersons who were in the UK under the Ankara Agreement could get indefinite leave to remain after four years. Then two cases established that the Secretary of State was entitled to change the rules on settlement while still complying with that agreement: see the Upper Tribunal...
Judge Clements, President of the First-tier Tribunal (IAC), yesterday released comprehensive new guidance on immigration bail for judges. The updated guidance naturally takes into account the significant changes brought about by the Immigration Act 2016. The blog has previously touched on some of the changes brought about by Schedule 10...
The Court of Appeal in DW (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 797 has stepped in to overturn the First-tier Tribunal’s decision to block the deportation of an individual on the basis of his family life. Factual background DW has a number of serious criminal...
Significant changes to immigration detention powers and a new status called “immigration bail” came into force on 15 January 2018. The Immigration Act 2016 (Commencement No. 7 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2017 commence sections 61(1) and (2) and 66 of the Immigration Act 2016 and most of the immigration bail...
In SA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] CSIH 28, the Inner House considered an appeal from the Upper Tribunal concerning a deportation order against a Romanian national. The two main issues were: the burden of proof in EEA deportation cases whether the First-tier Tribunal had got...
In Ryanair v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 899 the budget airline, no stranger to litigation, challenged the imposition of a £2,000 fine on it for carrying a man from Germany to the UK who, said the Secretary of State, had failed to produce the...
Theresa May declared in an interview with the Telegraph in May 2012 that she wanted to create a “really hostile environment” for irregular migrants in the UK. In this blog post we look at the evolution of the hostile environment, consider what measures fall within the overarching policy and examine the effects...
On 29 April the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, resigned after admitting that she had “inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee over targets for removal of illegal immigrants” from the UK. A few days previously she had told the committee that there were no removal targets. A letter from Rudd...
There have been three new immigration judges appointed to the First-tier Tribunal since we last covered judicial appointments. London Declan O’Callaghan, 46, barrister. The well-regarded practitioner announced his retirement from Landmark Chambers in January to the confusion of some colleagues, for whom the mystery is now solved. Involved in immigration...
Amber Rudd, who was Home Secretary when I started writing this short blog post but not by the time I had finished, has admitted that the Home Office detains migrants “that we have no realistic hope of removing from the country.” The admission comes in a letter leaked to The...
A lawyer is not merely a conduit through which their client’s grievances can be aired in court. The grievance must be formulated into a coherent and stateable case and presented in a professional, honest, and courteous manner. The Solicitors Regulation Authority requiressolicitors in England and Wales to refrain from any “attempt...
The default position when EU law no longer applies in the UK is to render EU citizens unlawfully resident. The proposed “settled status” scheme has been designed to prevent this, but perhaps its defining characteristic when compared with the rights available under EU law is that it does not come...
A struck-off solicitor has failed in a High Court bid to overturn the decision of a disciplinary tribunal to ban him from legal practice. The case is Ip v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2018] EWHC 957. Immigration specialist Vay Sui Ip was struck off following a decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal...
Much excitement on the BBC’s Today programme and elsewhere in the media about “a document that emerged overnight” which proves that the Home Office sets targets for removing people who have no right to remain in the UK. This matters because yesterday the Secretary of State, Amber Rudd, and a...
Yesterday afternoon, the Home Affairs committee of MPs had before it a selection of the nation’s newspaper editors. The subject of questioning: “whether there is an issue with treatment of minority groups in the print media”. Anyone who has glanced at the headlines about immigration over the past decade or...
Operation Nexus, a little-known arrangement between the police and Home Office, is changing the UK’s approach to deportation. The scheme means that EU citizens are being deported from the UK despite not being convicted of any crime. The details of how Nexus works varies from place to place, but it...
In the case of C-353/16 MP v Secretary of State for the Home Department, decided yesterday, the Court of Justice of the European Union has found that A person who has in the past been tortured in his country of origin is eligible for ‘subsidiary protection’ if he faces a...
What is the standard of proof for immigration applications? Both lawyers and non-lawyers are entitled to find that question baffling. Non-lawyers because it’s jargon, but the standard of proof basically means: how sure does the Home Office have to be before it accepts that someone is entitled to a visa,...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed as academic an appeal on the right of non-British children to housing. The case is Ismail & Anor v London Borough of Newham [2018] EWCA Civ 665. Had the appeal been entertained, it would have determined whether children born in the UK but without...
In Ribeli v Entry Clearance Officer, Pretoria [2018] EWCA Civ 611, the Court of Appeal reaffirmed the “rigorous and demanding” nature of the adult dependent relative rules, following the judgment in BRITCITS v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 368. Proving that you have an emotional...
Not a huge surprise, this one. The official headnote for Williams (scope of “liable to deportation”) [2018] UKUT 116 (IAC): (1) A person who has been deported under a deportation order that remains in force is a person who is liable to deportation within the meaning of section 3 of...
Lord Justice Irwin has labelled the Immigration Rules a “disgrace” in the latest example of judicial disquiet over the complexity and poor drafting of the bedrock immigration regulations. Speaking earlier this week, the Court of Appeal judge hit out at “obscurity” and “cannibalistic drafting” in legislation, of which he said...
Like Commonwealth citizens unable to pay for residence cards, children entitled to register for British citizenship are prevented from taking up their rightful status in the UK by swingeing Home Office fees, write Solange Valdez-Symonds and Steve Valdez-Symonds. The Home Office fee for residence cards has been one part of...
A high-profile firm of immigration solicitors has been shut down by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The regulator announced the closure on 18 April of Malik Law Chambers, which has two offices in London and one in Birmingham. Giving reasons for its decision, the SRA said: There is reason to suspect...
Role: Legal officer Contract: Permanent Location: Manchester Part-Time: 14 hours per week Salary: £13,590 p.a. pro-rata (full-time equivalent salary £33,975) plus generous holiday entitlement, pension scheme and group life assurance Job Ref: R19 Since 1985 Freedom from Torture has been the only UK human rights organization dedicated to treating and...
