First-tier Tribunal appeals against asylum decisions are twice as likely to succeed at some hearing centres compared to others, a BBC investigation has found. 47% of appeals succeeded at Taylor House, whereas the success rate was as low as 21% at Yarl’s Wood and 24% in Belfast. The data comes...
Where there is a “difference in views” between two European Union member states about which is required to pay a benefit to a claimant, EU law requires the state in which the claimant resides to make interim payments until the dispute is resolved. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v...
The case of R (Miah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2925 (Admin) concerns a British citizen who made an application for a passport, was refused, and ordered to leave the country. He had no in-country right of appeal against the decision. This case highlights serious...
In FY (Somalia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1853, the Court of Appeal refused the deportation of a Somali national on the basis that he would face a real risk of living in circumstances falling below the Article 3 threshold if deported. In doing...
Over a quarter of the officials who take decisions on asylum applications quit the Home Office in a single six-month period, an inspector’s report has revealed. The number of “active” asylum decision-makers fell from 319 in January 2016 to 228 in July 2016, or 29%, according to the Independent Chief...
Hearty congratulations from all of us at Free Movement to the former army officer and UN charity worker who are due to marry next year. But given that Meghan Markle is an American citizen, what hoops will the happy couple need to jump through in order to complete their nuptials?...
The current Prime Minister coined the term “hostile environment” when she was in charge at the Home Office. It is easy to forget that these measures, aimed at making life intolerable for immigrants without status, began during the last Labour government. Tabloid hysteria about hospitals and GP surgeries clogged up...
Upper Tribunal Judge Rintoul’s elegant, succinct summary of the law on age assessment, with which he opens the determination in R (AS) v Kent County Council (age assessment; dental evidence) [2017] UKUT 446, reminds us that pinpointing the age of a young person claiming asylum, other than where there is...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Some positive asylum stories in recent days: the value of outsourced asylum accommodation contracts is to double, according to the Guardian. There is an apparently similar attempt to right past wrongs at Brook House immigration removal centre, where operator...
There are a number of interesting findings in the Court of Session judgment, published today, in DN against Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] CSOH 144. DN is a Ugandan child who applied for entry clearance to join her mother in the UK. Her mother holds discretionary leave...
The Court of Appeal has reluctantly agreed that the Home Office has the power to ignore a First-tier Tribunal’s decision to grant bail to an immigration detainee. However, on the particular facts of the case, the decision to refuse consent to bail was deemed unlawful. Despite the impropriety of a...
Last week Suraj Saptoka was awarded £24,515.43 by order of a Deputy High Court judge for false imprisonment in Sapkota v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2857 (Admin). Mr Saptoka had been unlawfully detained for 36 days after immigration officials wrongfully decided he was attempting to...
To deprive a person of their citizenship on the grounds of their behaviour or opinion is to cast them out of society. It is a power of exile or banishment. In Roman law, the punishment of “proscription” was civic and literal death, unless the person went into exile. It would...
In Secretary of State for the Home Department v AM (Jamaica) [2017] EWCA Civ 1782 the Court of Appeal found that a First-tier Tribunal decision to allow a Jamaican man’s deportation appeal under Article 8 contained a material error of law and set it aside. In criminal deportation appeals, the...
Daniel Negassi v the United Kingdom (application no. 64337/14) was an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights with a complaint that the Home Office’s failure to grant Mr Negassi permission to work, while waiting for a decision on his asylum claim, was a breach of his right to...
Since April 2015, only very limited types of immigration case can be appealed. In the case of R (AT) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2589 (Admin), the High Court found that despite what the Immigration Rules say, an application for indefinite leave to remain on...
The Home Secretary recently announced that the number of people who can be accepted under the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) immigration route would double, from 1,000 to 2,000 each year. The exceptional talent visa regime does exactly what it says on the tin, providing a route for recognised or emerging...
There is some good news, some bad news and some not-exactly-surprising news in today’s Budget. The good news comes in the form of more liberal rules for scientists, researchers and international students who want to work and settle in the UK: 4.19 International talent – To support its ambitions on...
Asked on 21 November about any link between people being kept in indefinite immigration detention and those same people using drugs, Home Office minister Brandon Lewis replied: We don’t have indefinite detention, so… It was an assertion Lewis went on to repeat half a dozen times in the space of...
Immigration minister Brandon Lewis had rather a torrid time before the Home Affairs committee of MPs this morning. Committee chair Yvette Cooper raised concerns about the new requirements for banks to freeze or close the bank accounts of anyone who shows up in a Home Office database of people illegally...
A judicial review challenge to the Home Office policy of detaining and deporting rough sleepers from EU countries has begun in the High Court. In 2016 the Home Office began accusing people – mainly Eastern Europeans – found sleeping on the streets of “misusing” their EU free movement rights. Lambeth...
According to UK immigration rules, if a chef works at a restaurant which provides a take-away service, he is less skilled than one who plies his trade at a restaurant that does not. As a result, restaurants which provide a take-away service cannot offer employment to chefs under the Tier...
When is it a breach of Article 3 to remove someone with a severe, possibly terminal, medical condition to a country where they will not receive the care they need? When they’re days away from death? When it will halve their lifespan? What level of pain is required? What constitutes...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The economic effects of cutting immigration are in the eye of the beholder, it appears. The same study by PwC was variously reported as “Loss of skilled EU workers threatens UK growth” (Financial Times) and “Migration cut will...
From this week, defendants in the criminal courts must state their nationality. Anyone who fails to do so can be jailed for up to a year. The Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 4) Rules 2017 (2017 No. 915 (L. 13)) came into force on 13 November 2017. They stipulate that: 5....
In R (HC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 73 the Supreme Court decided that Zambrano carers are not eligible for non-contributory benefits which have a “right to reside” test. The benefits affected by the decision are income support, child benefit, child tax credits, and housing...
The author is running the 2018 London Marathon for the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees and invites readers to consider supporting this organisation via the sponsorship page. Deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is due back in Belgian court on 4 December over the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by the...
The legal representatives of immigration detainees who claimed to have been tortured or who may otherwise be unsuitable for detention were not given copies of their medical records, internal Home Office analysis shows. This was contrary to the department’s policy. An audit covering early 2014, but published yesterday, looked at...
In Bedford County Council v GE (Eritrea) [2017] EWCA Civ 1521 the Court of Appeal refused to overturn an age assessment simply because the local authority disagreed with judicial findings of fact. The judgment upheld the Administrative Court’s decision that GE was born on 27 September 1994, making her 16...
There have been “significant improvements” at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, according to the latest report by the independent Chief Inspector of Prisons. Peter Clarke nevertheless documents “ongoing concerns” about the infamous facility, which at the last inspection in 2015 was found to be “failing to meet the needs of...
A woman from Northern Ireland who refuses to identify as British in order to facilitate her husband’s immigration application has succeeded in her First-tier Tribunal challenge against the refusal of a residence card. The Home Office had told Emma DeSouza, who is from Magherafelt and holds an Irish passport, that...
The High Court in R (MS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2797 (Admin) has found that in circumstances where a person would have no option but to stay on the streets after release from detention, the Home Office has a duty under Article 3 of the...
Laws designed to combat trafficking are being misused to target those giving humanitarian assistance to migrants trying to reach the EU, the Institute for Race Relations says. A new report by the think tank finds that criminal laws are being used to punish people simply “seeking to uphold standards of...
The Court of Justice of the European Union has found in the case of C-165/16 Lounes that EU citizens who move to the UK and later naturalise as British retain their free movement rights under EU law even though they have become British. The court has held that the UK has wrongly been...
Abdulrahman Mohammed was last week awarded £78,500 by order of a High Court judge. The career criminal had been detained unlawfully under immigration powers on three occasions by the Home Office for a total period exceeding a year. Unusually, with both parties in agreement that the detention was unlawful, the...
