If there is one piece of advice practitioners take away from this post, let it be this: in ANY application you prepare, take the time and the effort to fully explain and particularise your client’s circumstances in your letter of representations. In applications for leave to remain under Article 8,...
A June decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C‑181/16 Gnandi is now available in English. I am not sure whether it is of huge relevance to UK-based practitioners, as it concerns the Returns Directive, which does not apply in this country. Nevertheless it may be...
Yesterday’s judgment in Aziz & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1884 saw the Court of Appeal uphold the Home Secretary’s decision to use her power to strip members of a notorious Rochdale grooming gang of their British citizenship. The use of a power...
The Home Office has confirmed that Irish citizens living in the UK are considered “settled” for the purposes of immigration law. The department said that officials in individual cases who had denied that Irish citizens were settled as soon as they took up residence in the UK were wrong to...
In AZ (error of law: jurisdiction; PTA practice) Iran [2018] UKUT 245 (IAC) the determination makes heavy weather of restating some settled principles of law and practice. The judge granting permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal had raised the question of whether the delay in promulgating the determination, an...
HACKNEY COMMUNITY LAW CENTRE seeks Immigration and Public Law Solicitor: salary negotiable Key duties: Must be IAAS accredited at Level 2 Senior Caseworker Level and also hold Supervisor status. Provide a specialist asylum and immigration advice, casework and representation service to clients. Be familiar with public funding requirements and judicial...
R (Singh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1669 is about how the transitional provisions in the Immigration Rules apply to online applications which must be supported with further evidence sent later by post. The appellant argued that an application made online without supporting evidence...
Secretary of State for the Home Department v Robinson (Jamaica) [2018] EWCA Civ 85 was a deportation appeal decided earlier in the year. Unusually for an appeal judgment, we didn’t discuss it on Free Movement at the time. But Adam Pipe of No.8 Chambers has included it in his handy...
Welcome to the June 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. I start this month with a whistle-stop tour of some of the latest changes to the Immigration Rules before highlighting a couple of procedural changes, including the end of special deadlines for the Home Office in judicial...
The Court of Appeal has found that it is “sufficiently arguable” that conditions in Gaza are attributable to “the direct and indirect actions of the parties to the conflict” for a fresh decision to be made in the case of a Palestinian family contesting removal. This important judgment means that...
In a highly significant development, the President of the First-tier Tribunal has issued a new guidance note on how migrants who win an appeal against the Home Office can seek legal costs from the department. The guidance envisages costs awards for “unreasonable conduct” where the Home Office contests an appeal...
R (Shrestha & Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hamid jurisdiction: nature and purposes) [2018] UKUT 242 (IAC) was another in the recent line of ‘Hamid’ cases in which the High Court and Upper Tribunal metaphorically publicly flog immigration lawyers who do not meet their own exacting...
The Home Office has been found in serious breach of its duty to the court after submitting misleading evidence about how it handled the rescue of refugee children from the demolished Calais “jungle” camp. The judgment in R (Citizens UK) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA...
Practitioners not au fait with February’s decision in Charles (human rights appeal: scope) Grenada [2018] UKUT 89 (IAC) may want to take a quick glance over it. The Home Office guidance on appeal rights has just been updated to include a page on what it means for human rights appeals....
What’s another few months when you’ve been waiting two decades? For the past 20 years, a group of Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have been marooned on a British military base in Cyprus, recognised as refugees but denied settlement in the UK. In R (Tag Eldin Ramadan Bashir and others) v...
This is probably a determination best ignored, from the judge who brought us Sala. The headnote reads: 1. An appeal under s 82(1)(c) is an appeal against revocation of the basis upon which the leave referred to in s 82(2)(c) was granted. 2. The only allowable ground under s 84(3)(a)...
In a deeply unsurprising turn of events (see posts passim), the Court of Appeal has overturned a favourable deportation decision in Secretary of State for the Home Department v MR (Pakistan) [2018] EWCA Civ 1598. MR, a citizen of Pakistan, entered the UK in October 2002 as a student and...
Those who were present at the recent Administrative Law Bar Association breakfast meeting on costs in judicial review will recall Alison Pickup, Legal Director of the Public Law Project, reminding us that Judicial Review in the Upper Tribunal is not technically judicial review, and of the quotation marks around that...
Some amendments to the British Nationality (General) Regulations 2003. From the explanatory notes: Regulation 2 amends regulation 3 of the 2003 Regulations, as a consequence of the amendment made by regulation 4 of these Regulations, and requires applicants for registration as a British citizen, British Overseas citizen or British subject...
The decision in Khan & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1684 brings to an end the long-running ETS saga, so called after the Educational Testing Service company that discovered large-scale cheating on its Home Office-approved English exams. In a previous case the Court...
Today the government published a follow-up report by Stephen Shaw on its progress in implementing his 2016 recommendations on detaining vulnerable people. The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, also announced a series of reforms including a pilot of mandatory bail hearings after two months. The original Shaw Review, back in 2016, had...
I couldn’t bring myself to spend a sunny weekend poring over the statement of changes to the Immigration Rules that landed on Friday afternoon, so here is a belated catch-up. In fact the changes are not the usual tinkering but the insertion of a new section, called Appendix EU, catering...
Macastena v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1558 highlights the difference between extended family members’ rights and family members’ rights under EU law, as well as the extent of the tribunal’s statutory remit. Background to the case The appellant is a Kosovan national who came...
Homeless migrants are being kept in detention centres indefinitely because the Home Office is no longer finding them a place to live after release. The department’s refusal or inability to provide accommodation under a new immigration bail system introduced this year means that potentially thousands of migrants in detention have...
The guidance that Tier 2 and 5 sponsors must follow was updated last week. The new version applies to sponsor licence applications made, and certificates of sponsorship assigned, on or after 18 July 2018. Some of the key changes are: Fees and refunds Application fees for sponsor licence applications and...
Taking part in strike action can be stressful enough. But for migrant workers who are sponsored by their employer, striking has also had the potential to place their immigration status in the UK at risk. This is because the Home Office’s position has been that unpaid absence from work due...
The High Court has ruled that failure to provide a medical assessment within 24 hours of arrival at a detention centre can make continued detention unlawful. In R (KG) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1767 (Admin) the court found that the Home Office had failed...
The Immigration Rules provide that somebody who wishes to stay in the UK on the basis of their family ties but does not otherwise meet the requirements of Appendix FM can argue that there are “exceptional circumstances”. Paragraph GEN.3.2.(2) says that: …the decision-maker must consider, on the basis of the information...
In two recently decided cases, the High Court looked at the relationship between immigration matters and proceedings in the family court. That is about as far as it goes in terms of a unifying theme, if I’m honest: the uncontroversial proposition in each one is that the immigration and family...
New figures from the Home Office show that hundreds of British citizens have unlawfully had their citizenship nullified since 2013. A Freedom of Information request by the author revealed that there were 262 decisions to nullify British citizenship between 2007 and 2017, peaking at 176 cases in 2013. In December...
Campaign group the3million, which lobbies for the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit, has published a legal analysis of the settlement scheme those citizens will soon have to apply for. The group says that the government’s proposal, as set out in a statement of intent last month,...
The Home Office now believes that the Sudanese country guidance cases should no longer be followed, based on a change of country circumstances. Its “lines to take” now argue that while non-Arabs are likely to be at risk in the Darfur region, not all are at risk in the capital...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has taken a strict approach to time limits on take back requests imposed by the Dublin III Regulation. In case C‑213/17 X v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, the court ruled that Italy had responsibility for considering an asylum claim even though...
Perhaps it’s the Donald Trump effect? The government yesterday announced two policy changes that should benefit migrants in the UK, just as the famously anti-immigrant reality TV host President of the United States was landing at Stansted airport. First, legal aid is to be restored for lone child migrants. Justice...
