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...
Warning: contains spoilers. And information about the plot too. See also my review of the original Paddington film. Let me say at the outset that Paddington 2 is a deeply unrealistic film. As a Paddington fan and father of two young children I had no problem suspending my disbelief to...
The Home Office has updated its guidance on Surinder Singh cases, with “clarifications” on the requirements of the eponymous route. As our in-depth post on this topic explains, the Surinder Singh route is a potential means for British citizens to rely on family-friendly EU free movement laws — rather than...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The government’s technical note on settled status for EU citizens was widely reported, with the right-wing press focusing on proposed criminal record checks (see Daily Mail and Telegraph). The European Parliament isn’t impressed, though, and says that the...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal against deportation of a man with permanent residence in Kamki v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1715. Mr Kamki had been seeking to prevent his removal to Cameroon following imprisonment for rape. UK residence and criminal conviction...
There has apparently been politics happening in the past few days, leading to a mini-reshuffle of government ministers. Priti Patel’s humiliation is Sarah Newton’s promotion: the Home Office’s most junior minister moves to the Department for Work and Pensions, to be replaced by Victoria Atkins MP. The Parliamentary Under Secretary...
In a decision of 7 November 2017, the Court of Appeal unanimously found, yet again, that the extension of the Worker Registration Scheme from 1 May 2009 to 30 April 2011 was unlawful and incompatible with EU law. The case is Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Gubeladze...
The Migrants’ Rights Network is crowdfunding for a legal challenge to stop the NHS becoming more involved in immigration enforcement. A data-sharing agreement with NHS Digital will allow the Home Office to access previously confidential information about patients. The charity has applied for permission for a judicial review of this...
In Sala (EFMs: Right of Appeal : Albania) [2016] UKUT 411 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal held that there was no right of appeal against a decision by the Home Office to refuse a residence card to the extended family member of an EEA citizen. The Court of Appeal declared on...
A judge of the First-tier Tribunal has reportedly said that some Home Office presenting officers appearing before him are “worse than useless”. Judge Nicholas Easterman, who became an immigration judge in 2003, told a Bar Council event last night that the tribunal “cannot manage in many cases without proper assistance...
Last year the High Court in JM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1773 (Admin) made a declaration that “the Defendant may not lawfully require the Claimant, under section 35 of the [Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004], to tell Zimbabwean officials that...
Taskiran v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2679 (Admin) is a sad case. A web of domestic immigration law and international agreements have resulted in Mr Taskiran undergoing almost four years of immigration detention, which the court found legal. Mr Taskiran was brought to the United...
Practitioners may be wondering where on earth the Home Office guidance on bail and detention has got to. It used to be housed in a section of the Home Office website entitled “Chapters 46 to 62: detention and removals“. But as visitors to that section can now see, chapters 55...
The average immigration appeal takes almost 12 months to be resolved, up 13% on the same period last year. This is despite the fact that less than half as many people now have the chance to challenge Home Office decisions. The number of appeals handled by the immigration tribunal has...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. There has been renewed excitement about the notion of associate EU citizenship for UK nationals after David Davis said that he would “look seriously” at the idea (Sun). Our editor, though, points out that the idea is...
It’s beer o’clock, and if you’re in a JD Wetherspoon establishment this evening you may see a beer mat with this intoxicating sentiment: The UK should unilaterally and immediately grant full rights of citizenship to legal EU immigrants. The company says that it has distributed 500,000 beer mats containing its...
The government has responded to a report by MPs on the work of the Immigration Directorates – a mere 456 days after the report came out. When Home Affairs Select Committee began its enquiry, Brexit had not yet happened. It published its report on 27 July 2016, a matter of...
Carles Puigdemont, erstwhile President de la Generalitat de Catalunya, fled Spain to Belgium this week following his parliament’s unilateral declaration of independence for Catalonia. Several of his ministers followed him into exile. A European Arrest Warrant will soon be issued seeking their extradition back to Spain to face criminal charges....
Immigration policy is decided at a national level, meaning that the rules governing the entry of foreign nationals to the UK are almost entirely the same across the land. The requirements, for instance, to be met by nurses under Tier 2 of the Points Based System are the same in...
The hostile environment policy is making it more difficult for the Home Office to keep track of foreign national offenders and could even push up crime, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has said. David Bolt’s inspection of the Home Office’s management of non-detained foreign national offenders reports...
Help Refugees has lost its challenge to the Home Office’s delay in relocating child refugees under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. The decision in R (Help Refugees Limited) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2727 (Admin) was handed down today. The charity immediately committed...
Last week’s Court of Appeal judgment in R (Agyemang) v London Borough of Haringey [2017] EWCA Civ 1630 reveals familiar tactics by local authorities resisting requests for support under the Children Act 1989. The claimant-appellant, a Ghanaian mother of a five-year-old child, brought judicial review proceedings with an application for...
£1 million in Home Office funding is now available to help with community sponsorship of refugees. The department says that The fund is for the community sponsorship scheme which enables community groups to take on the rewarding role of welcoming and supporting refugee families in the UK. Sponsor groups can...
Majid Shiri, an Iranian national, arrived in Austria through Bulgaria in 2015. He made an asylum claim in Bulgaria in February of that year but claimed asylum in Austria the following month. The Austrian authorities asked Bulgaria to take Mr Shiri back under the Dublin III Regulation, which ‘take back request’...
Sivayogam is a religious charity, serving Hindu and Tamil communities in London. Finding priests in the UK and Europe had proven difficult so, in 2009, it applied for registration as a Tier 2 sponsor, allowing the organisation to bring in religious workers from abroad. Its experience in R (Sivayogam) v...
Ndidi v the United Kingdom (Application no. 41215/14) had the beginnings of a tabloid splash. A Nigerian national convicted of drug dealing, who had lived in the UK since the age of two, sought to block his deportation by recourse to foreign judges. The European Court of Human Rights disappointed...
Measures requiring banks to check on the immigration status of existing account holders come into force today. To celebrate, the Home Office has published some brief guidance for those who, as “disqualified persons”, find their current account locked or closed. It has also updated its guidance for the banks themselves....
