All Articles

In the case of Harverye v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2848, Lord Justice Irwin in the Court of Appeal held that where an appeal against deportation is allowed, the Home Office cannot make a second decision to deport unless there has been a change...

10th January 2019
BY Colin Yeo

Good, clear new policy on DNA evidence in immigration cases from the Home Office following the scandal last year: The Home Office cannot require that DNA evidence is provided as part of an immigration application. This is reflected in the fact that the department has no specific statutory power to...

9th January 2019
BY Colin Yeo

There is so much in the immigration white paper, publishedjust before Christmas, that sounds pretty good for employers. But if the sponsorship system is to cope when extended to cover skilled workers arriving from the EU, a huge amount of work will be needed to simplify it. The white paper...

9th January 2019
BY Nichola Carter

In Cabucak v Germany (application no. 18706/16), the European Court of Human Rights dismissed a strong Article 8 claim to uphold a deportation order made against a serial drug-dealer. Mr Cabucak, who despite being a Turkish national was born and raised in Germany, has a tragic life story. His father killed...

8th January 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court decision that Operation Nexus — the “operational and intelligence partnership for immigration enforcement” between the police and the Home Office that we have commented on several times previously — is lawful. The case is R (The Centre for Advice on Individual...

8th January 2019
BY Colin Yeo

In addition to the deluge of new Immigration Rules and legislation we faced in the May years, and now the looming Brexit iceberg, a major (if inevitable) change of recent times has been the digitisation of immigration applications. Unlike with Rules and legislation changes, there was little opportunity to scrutinise...

8th January 2019
BY Jonathan Kingham

The immigration and asylum tribunal has issued updated but essentially unchanged Practice Directions. The new document is almost identical to the previous version, dated November 2014. I’ve put the new Directions into a text comparison programme alongside the old and it flags up just one change: 13. Bail applications 13.1...

7th January 2019
BY CJ McKinney

Migrants who would not otherwise have the right to live in the UK can acquire that right by getting married to a British national, EU citizen or another migrant who is settled here. In theory, that route is open to abuse by couples who are not really in a genuine...

7th January 2019
BY Nath Gbikpi

A migrant’s marital status can make a huge difference to their right to be in the UK. The spouse of an EU national exercising treaty rights in the UK will automatically have a right to reside in the UK. The spouses of British or settled citizens do not acquire such...

4th January 2019
BY Nath Gbikpi

The tribunal has concluded, finally, that particularly vulnerable asylum seekers face breaches of Article 3 if returned to Italy to have their asylum claims processed under the Dublin Regulation. It would be fair to say the circumstances where this applies are tightly drawn by the tribunal: the vulnerability would need...

3rd January 2019
BY Colin Yeo

A new Immigration Services Commissioner will finally be appointed in 2019 — over three years after the last commissioner stood down. There has been no leader at the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, which regulates over 3,000 registered immigration advisers, since late 2015. Deputy commissioner Dr Ian Leigh wrote...

2nd January 2019
BY CJ McKinney

Windrush The defining event of 2018 in the world of immigration law was without doubt the exposure of what has become known as the Windrush scandal. The way the scandal was eventually picked up by all news outlets caught everyone by surprise, me included. It has led to significant changes...

2nd January 2019
BY Colin Yeo

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...

31st December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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)...

31st December 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

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...

28th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

27th December 2018
BY Joanna Hunt

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...

27th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

21st December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

21st December 2018
BY Iain Halliday

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...

21st December 2018
BY ILPA

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...

21st December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

21st December 2018
BY Darren Stevenson

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...

21st December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

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...

20th December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

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...

20th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

20th December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

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...

20th December 2018
BY Alex Schymyck

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...

19th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

18th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Bristol Refugee Rights, a great organisation, needs help with a fundraising campaign to keep its Advice Project running. They have just short of 100 donors at the time of writing and the end of the campaign is fast approaching. Please donate if you can.  

...
18th December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

The Upper Tribunal has held in the case of LS (Article 45 TFEU – derivative rights) [2018] UKUT 426 (IAC) that the family member of a cross border worker within the EU — one who lives in one EU country but works regularly in another — can derive a right...

18th December 2018
BY Colin Yeo

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...

17th December 2018
BY Iain Halliday

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...

14th December 2018
BY Husein Meghji

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...

14th December 2018
BY CJ McKinney

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...

14th December 2018
BY Alison Harvey

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...

13th December 2018
BY colinyeo
Login
Or become a member of Free Movement today