The chief inspector of prisons has attacked the Home Office for its “unacceptable” failure to respond to his reports on immigration detention centres. Peter Clarke, writing in the annual report of HM Inspectorate of Prisons, said that only half the action plans supposed to be drawn up had been sent...
Two years after the referendum vote to leave the European Union, the government has published a White Paper describing what it wants from the future relationship between the UK and EU. The 100-page document includes some references to the future of immigration from the EU, but only in certain, limited...
The latest, and presumably last, amendments to the EEA Regulations were laid before Parliament on 3 July 2018. The Immigration (European Economic Area) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018 No. 801) will come into force on 24 July 2018. Implementing a number of cases decided by the Court of Justice of...
The right of free movement for EU migrants could be replaced with something more like the arrangements making travel easier for Canadian business people, the Home Secretary has said. Sajid Javid told the Home Affairs committee of MPs today that free movement will end after Brexit, “full stop”, and repeatedly...
Another shot fired in the ongoing skirmishes between judges, perhaps starting to feel some of the workload pressure that legal aid lawyers have been labouring under for years, and immigration practitioners. Last week a JUSTICE report ominously recommended “greater use of the Hamid procedure”, a hearing convened to haul practitioners...
The Upper Tribunal does not take kindly to the assertion that it operates “unwritten rules”, as was argued in the recent case of SS (Sri Lanka) [2018] EWCA Civ 1391. The points before the court related to delay in promulgating a decision where credibility is in issue and whether a...
The new case of R (QR (Pakistan)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1413 is yet another example of fallout from last year’s Supreme Court judgment in Kiarie and Byndloss, relating to the infamous “deport first, appeal later” policy. The QR judgment itself doesn’t give...
A quick note on an unsuccessful challenge to a good character naturalisation refusal. The claimant sought to argue that the policy of refusing citizenship on the ground of bad character where the person had broken immigration laws in the preceding decade was ultra vires the British Nationality Act 1981. The...
In Teh v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1586 (Admin) the High Court has found that a British Overseas Citizen (BOC) can be stateless under the Immigration Rules if he or she has no other nationality. This is an interesting and pragmatic finding which highlights the...
Welcome to the May 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. It was a bumper month for immigration and asylum law updates, with 61 posts published on Free Movement in May. I can’t possibly cover everything, but the highlights include an important High Court intervention on automatic detention...
As regular readers of this blog will be aware, the Home Office’s latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules comes into force tomorrow (Friday 6 July 2018). Nath has summarised the various changes being introduced in a previous post. Although a relatively small part of a fairly lengthy statement...
Home Office profit on the fees charged to children exercising their right to British citizenship comes to nearly £100 million over the past five years, Free Movement analysis has shown. The controversially high fee for the citizenship process known as registration — set this year at £1,012 — is far...
In R (Gedi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 409 the Court of Appeal reversed a High Court decision that the words “restriction as to residence” in paragraph 2(5) of Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 empowered the Secretary of State to impose a...
The human rights and law reform organisation JUSTICE has launched a new report on the immigration asylum appeals system, saying that the tribunals have “become relatively complex and slow in parts of their operation, and overburdened by paper and unnecessary bureaucracy”. A working party chaired by Professor Sir Ross Cranston...
R (Connell) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1329 is about whether the Home Secretary has a duty, imposed by Parliament, to deport foreign criminals even if they are EEA nationals. The Court of Appeal ruled that the legislation on automatic deportation includes an exception...
When asked why the fees for visa applications are so expensive, the Home Office traditionally responds that the immigration system should be “funded by those who benefit from it”, in order to reduce taxpayer expense. This is a convenient political argument. It has justified enormous increases in application and other...
AAH (Iraqi Kurds – internal relocation) (CG) [2018] UKUT 212 (IAC) is a recent country guidance case on the availability of internal relocation for Iraqi Kurds to the Iraqi Kurdish Region. This case updates some of the guidance contained in AA (Iraq) v SSHD [2017] EWCA Civ 944, which had...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors wants help from legal aid firms in its challenge to Legal Aid Agency rules that prevent solicitors from claiming for emergency work carried out before legal aid is formally granted. The Legal Aid Agency’s position is that the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012 rule out legal...
Where a detainee is held under immigration powers by the state, he or she has the right to apply to be released on bail to the First-tier Tribunal. Previously, if a detainee had no place to stay on release then they could ask to be accommodated, under section 4(1)(c) of...
The first phase of a Home Office investigation into migrants being refused settlement because of tax discrepancies shows that the refusals were “correct”, the immigration minister said today. In a letter to the Home Affairs committee, published on 28 June, Caroline Nokes laid out the initial findings from a review...
The case of TY (Overseas Adoptions – Certificates of Eligibility) Jamaica [2018] UKUT 197 (IAC) involves the complex interplay between the Immigration Rules and international adoption law. It is a must-read for anyone involved in applications or appeals in this area. The case is also authority for the proposition that...
In the case of R (Nesiama & Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1369, the Court of Appeal found that “residence” in the UK means “physical presence”, such that continuous residence in an application for indefinite leave to remain may be broken by too...
What should the repercussions be if the Home Office accidentally splashes the personal details of asylum seekers all over the internet? If your answer is “compensation”, congratulations: you are at one with the Court of Appeal. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor v TLU...
R (Aboro) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 1436 (Admin) is an unlawful detention claim about how conflicting psychiatric evidence should be interpreted. The Secretary of State relied upon the evidence of a detention centre doctor, in preference to experts instructed by Mr Aboro, to justify...
Refugee Legal Support: Athens, a group of British immigration lawyers that runs a pro bono legal clinic for refugees in Greece, is looking to hire a local lawyer to help with the project. The position is a temporary, three-month stint based in Athens beginning as soon as possible, with the...
Since 2014 the Upper Tribunal has permitted the Home Office double the normal time limit set by the procedure “rules” for responding to an application for judicial review. Instead of having the 21 days proscribed by the “rules” to respond to a claim, in a case called Kumar [2014] UKUT...
Nour Taleb runs the Sweety House, the latest popular Syrian business to open in Edinburgh. Mr Taleb fled Syria in 2012, arriving in the UK as a refugee under the government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme in 2016. A similar tale of refugee success is Taza Bake, a Syrian bakery...
Ministers released further information today on the settled status registration scheme for EU citizens living the UK after Brexit. Many of the headline announcements cover familiar ground, but there is now a 40-page statement of intent on the EU Settlement Scheme, as well as draft Immigration Rules. Roughly 3.5 million...
The official headnote of Tirabi (Deportation: “lawfully resident”: s.5(1)) [2018] UKUT 199 (IAC): For the purposes of applying to para 399A of the Rules and s. 117C of the 2002 Act a definition of “lawfully resident” analogous to that in para 276A (as mandated by SC (Jamaica)), the invalidation provisions...
There are a considerable number of asylum claims in the UK by young Afghan boys and men. The number should not be overstated, though. The latest immigration statistics show that Afghans are still outside the top five nationalities claiming asylum in the UK (excluding dependents). They also record that of...
In R (TDT, by his litigation friend Tara Topteagarden) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 1395 the Court of Appeal considered the threshold at which the duty to protect trafficked persons under article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights comes into play and...
“I would not open windows into men’s souls,” said Elizabeth I. But that is exactly the task facing those charged with deciding asylum claims based on religion or belief. Is a professed conversion to another religion, or to non-religion, sincere or sham? In a society where free expression of faith...
Official headnote to MS (Art 1C(5)- Mogadishu) [2018] UKUT 196 (IAC): The Secretary of State is not entitled to cease a person’s refugee status pursuant to Article 1C(5) of the Refugee Convention solely on the basis of a change in circumstances in one part of the country of proposed return....
