It is one thing when the state seeks to withdraw a permission or privilege. It is a very different matter when it seeks to interfere with an individual’s rights. Privileges are precarious. In the absence of good reason to the contrary, rights should be secure. This emphatic opening line comes...
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott delivered a speech today on what Labour in government would do about immigration. It doesn’t do to get too excited about these pronouncements, because Labour is not in government, but here is a link to the full text and a few highlights. Labour wants to...
The government has announced a new type of permission to remain in the UK for children resettled from the Calais refugee camp last year who would not otherwise qualify for asylum. So-called “Calais leave” will allow children brought over from the infamous “Jungle” camp between October 2016 and July 2017...
On 4 September the Republic of Ireland announced plans for a new “regularisation scheme” to allow certain undocumented migrants to remain in the country legally. The amnesty will be open to anyone who came to Ireland as an international student between January 2005 and December 2010 and is now undocumented. Although...
Immigration lawyers helping sponsoring universities navigate the complexities of the Points Based System naturally have an economic interest in overseas students — but then so does the rest of the nation. That is the uncompromising conclusion of the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), whose experts find that “there is no...
In May, Nick wrote about the important High Court decision in R (Lauzikas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1045 (Admin), which threw a spanner in the works of the Home Office’s policy of automatic detention of foreign criminals at the end of their sentence. Mr...
Welcome to the July 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month I start by discussing some developments in nationality law, then cover the EU Settlement Scheme that is starting to take shape and currently being piloted. While we await Brexit, EU law still applies, so we...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Strasbourg decision in Paposhvili v Belgium (application no. 41738/10) has no effect on cases where someone relies on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to claim that they should not be removed from the UK because of a lack...
In this post, we consider the type of evidence and information which should be gathered to support the appeal of a non-EEA national who has been made subject to an order for deportation. It is adapted from our full online training course on deportation law, available to Free Movement members....
If negotiations on an orderly withdrawal from the European Union break down completely, the UK risks a “chaotic Brexit” on 29 March 2019, with no overall withdrawal agreement in place nor any smaller deals to mitigate the shock of a no deal outcome. Both the UK and EU27 could take...
The Independent and the Telegraph are reporting on the upsetting case of a little boy, born in Leeds, who is being denied re-entry to the UK because the Home Office has revoked his British passport. Mohamed Bangoura, aged six, was staying with relatives in Belgium over the summer and “marched away from...
TF and MA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] CSIH 58 is a recent Court of Session (Inner House) decision which addresses two key themes within the immigration and asylum sphere. Firstly, the extent to which adverse credibility findings against an appellant on the basis of one...
The government’s immigration inspector, like the rest of us, is a little fed up with Home Office spin. David Bolt published the results of an re-inspection of the refugee family reunion process today with the acid comment: Predictably, the Home Office’s formal response accentuates the positives in my report… Mr...
FULL- OR PART-TIME LEGAL OFFICER We have an exciting opportunity to advance the rights of LGBTQI+ asylum seekers and refugees! We are recruiting a legal officer to help improve the representation of LGBTQI+ asylum seekers and create change within the asylum system. UKLGIG has been supporting LGBTQI+ people through...
Despite our remarks in previous blogs about the useless nature of British Overseas Citizen status, a series of judgments handed down by the High Court this summer demonstrate that this unusual version of British nationality is sufficiently valuable to encourage the pursuit of lengthy and expensive litigation against BOC passport...
Browsing LinkedIn the other day I came across this post by Jacqueline Victor-Mazeli, a barrister at Law Lane Chambers: Appeal hearings [at the First-tier Tribunal] are presently taking place an average of 12 months after decision. The passage of time can see circumstances or caselaw change as well as see...
The British Nationality Act 1981, which took effect on 1 January 1983, introduced British citizenship into UK nationality law. In doing so, it removed the principle of jus soli – the principle by which citizenship is acquired by being born on the territory – from the operation of that nationality...
In 1985, immigration solicitor Sheona York read an article in the Guardian about a new technology for proving someone’s identity. She called the inventor, Professor Alec Jeffreys, at the University of Leicester to see whether this “DNA testing” could help to resolve an immigration dispute. The Home Office was demanding...
There have been a quite a few reports, briefings and pieces of research on immigration released in the past week — too many to cover in the weekly newsletter, as I had intended. It is very much back-to-work reading rather than anything for the beach, but may be of interest....
The “Surinder Singh route” has become well known to British citizens seeking to be reunited with their family members. The toughening up of UK immigration rules in July 2012 – particularly the introduction of the minimum income rule with its labyrinthine documentary requirements, and the awful elderly dependent relative rules...
With the Article 50 deadline fast approaching, there has been growing concern that the UK will leave the European Union with “no deal”. If no withdrawal agreement making provision for a transition period is reached by 29 March 2019, the UK will fall out of the EU without an agreement...
I am quoted in a recent Guardian story about the notorious, if niche, paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules. This is the rule being used to refuse leave to remain to migrants because of alleged discrepancies between their tax returns to HMRC and the income declared to the Home Office...
In R (H) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2191 (Admin) the High Court has rejected two complaints about how the Home Office recognises and cares for trafficking victims in detention. First, the claimant argued that Rule 34 and Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules...
The UK government has published a series of papers on what a “no deal Brexit” would look like but the crucial issue of EU citizens’ rights is not covered in the first batch. Earlier today the Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, launched the “first batch in a series” of technical notices...
The Upper Tribunal has ruled that the term “worker” in the regulations concerning the rights of residence retained by non-EEA nationals if they divorce their EEA spouse includes jobseekers. This means that when someone who has given up work during marriage gets divorced from an EU citizen they will still...
The recently published UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group report Still Falling Short examines the Home Office’s decision-making in asylum applications from LGBTQI+ people. The report is a qualitative study of mainly lesbian, gay and bisexual cases. It analyses Home Office interview records and reasons for refusal letters to assess...
Immigration lawyers are among the groups being asked by the Home Office to submit evidence about what caused the Windrush scandal and what would prevent a repeat. In a “lessons learned” call for evidence issued on 20 August, the department says that “immigration advisors and lawyers who may represent those...
We’ve three new Upper Tribunal decisions for you this week. Alex has written up one of them already and will cover another later in the week, lest readers be overwhelmed with too much excitement in one day. The third new case is called Mansur (Immigration adviser’s failings, Article 8) [2018]...
Kovacevic (British citizen – Art 21 TFEU) Croatia [2018] UKUT 273 (IAC) is about whether EU free movement law protects dual nationals (i.e. someone who is a citizen of the UK and another EU country) who have never exercised their EU free movement rights. The Upper Tribunal ruled that a...
In R v GS [2018] EWCA Crim 1824 the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has ruled that victims of trafficking should be allowed to rely on changes to the law and new evidence about their trafficking history when seeking to appeal criminal convictions. The appellant, GS, was convicted in 2007...
What happens when an American graduate, about to become eligible for indefinite leave to remain having lived lawfully in the UK for almost a decade, incorrectly thinks that he is eligible to apply for British citizenship and applies for that instead? You might think that, for example, the Home Office...
MS (Pakistan) TD and X (A Child) (Jamaica) [2018] EWCA Civ 1776, a case about the minimum income requirement for sponsoring a family member under the Immigration Rules, shows that sometimes starting over with an immigration application and waiting a little longer for a decision is the right way to...
The EU Settlement Scheme for registering Europeans who want to stay legally in the UK after Brexit will sign people up alphabetically, according to a news report today. “Multiple sources” have told the website Business Insider that under a confidential plan being discussed by senior officials, caseworkers would process European...
In PK (Draft evader; punishment; minimum severity) Ukraine [2018] UKUT 241 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has refused to protect a Ukrainian draft evader despite acknowledging that there is evidence that taking part in the conflict might involve committing acts contrary to the “basic rules of human conduct”. The tribunal found...
R (CP (Vietnam)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2122 (Admin) is an example of disgraceful treatment of a trafficking victim by the Home Office. Decision-makers repeatedly ignored evidence that the claimant might be a victim of trafficking, which led to him falling back into the...
The removal of full rights of appeal for family visit visas in 2013 has led to a legal dilemma for those considering a challenge to a refusal: should they give up, re-apply, attempt a human rights appeal or launch an application for judicial review? The problem seems all the more...
