The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a new report on the Home Office approach to sham marriages. The report is critical of the change in approach brought about by new powers conferred on officials by the Immigration Act 2014: The inspection found that the initial implementation of...
In an interesting development on the validity of proxy marriages, the Home Office has taken the view in a Court of Appeal case that the Upper Tribunal’s approach in Kareem [2014] UKUT 24 is wrong in law. The Court of Appeal has declined to simply overrule Kareem on this basis,...
Interesting letter from the Immigration Minister to the Home Affairs Select Committee setting out the Home Office approach to and strategy on the ETS litigation. Source: Written evidence – Letter from Robert Goodwill MP, Minister for Immigration, to the Chair of the Committee, 15 December 2016
...In a new case on dental age assessments, the tribunal has ordered that a young asylum seeker to undergo a dental x-ray and age assessment. If he refuses, his court case will be struck out. The case also gives general guidance on the correct approach to be followed in similar...
The Home Office has reviewed operation of the cruel Immigration Rules for Adult Dependent Relatives such as parents or grandparents introduced in July 2012. They are considered to be meeting their policy objectives and will not be changed, the review has concluded. Senior policy adviser Clive Peckover writes: As the...
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published a new report into the quality of legal service provided to asylum seekers. The full report can be found here. The report is broadly positive: Solicitors and law firms are generally serving asylum seekers well, we have found, although there remains room for improvement....
The Supreme Court has given judgment in the case of Mirza v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 63. The case concerned the effect of section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 as amended and whether it extends leave where an applicant for leave is found later...
Following hot on the heels of the hardline British Future report on the rights of EU nationals in the UK after Brexit, the House of Lords EU Justice Committee has today published a report on the same subject. It is a far more comprehensive and comprehending piece of work and...
Nine people are convicted of an immigration fraud linked to English language tests used for student visas. Source: Nine convicted over student visa English test plot – BBC News Meanwhile, Nick Armstrong of Matrix Chambers has been involved in an interesting judicial review case also involving the ETS language testing...
Free Movement has reported twice on immigration removal centres (IRCs) blocking access to websites informing detainees of their legal rights. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised Haslar IRC two years ago for having the websites of Bail for Immigration Detainees and Amnesty International blocked. What are "prohibited categories" of websites in...
A hardline report chaired by prominent Leave campaigner Gisela Stewart into the status of EU nationals in the UK has recommended a cut off date for new arrivals from the EU, likely to be April 2017, and a massive registration programme for existing EU residents. EU citizens arriving after the...
The Points Based System is notoriously complex and indecipherable. Initially I believe this was simply incompetence on the part of Home Office officials unable to communicate in plain English and ill equipped to design to and then adapt to the constantly shifting requirements of Ministers. My view is that the...
Jean Lambert MEP has published a factsheet on the legal rights of EU nationals currently living in the UK. Written by Colin Yeo, barrister at Garden Court Chambers, it answers several of the most commonly-asked questions in these uncertain times following the vote to leave the European Union (‘Brexit’)....
GUIDELINES ON INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NO. 12: Claims for refugee status related to situations of armed conflict and violence under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and the regional refugee definitions UNHCR issues these Guidelines on International Protection pursuant to its mandate,...
An employment tribunal held that an employee was fairly dismissed after failing to produce evidence of his right to work in the UK. Interesting, if depressing. Hopefully this will be going up to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, if only so that we can see the law and reasoning behind it...
The latest quarterly immigration statistics show that immigration to the UK for the year ended June 2016 was 650,000, the highest level ever recorded. Net migration stood at 335,000, just below the previous high of 2015. An estimated 49,000 more British citizens left the UK than returned from abroad. You can...
The power under the Immigration Act 2016 to certify any human rights appeal, not just deportation appeals, for “remove first, appeal later” treatment came into force today, 1 December 2016. For background see this earlier blog post: New commencement order introduces out of country human rights appeals and more. Guidance...
Venerable Form FLR(O) is no more and has been withdrawn with effect from today, 1 December 2016. It has been replaced by two new forms: 1. FLR(HRO) broadly for applications outside the Immigration Rules based on human rights: discretionary leave (DL) if you have previously been granted DL but have...
The Bar Standards Board has taken the decision to disbar Tariq Rehman of Kings Court Chambers in Birmingham. You can Google them if you want but I am not linking to them. Mr Rehman is understood to have been involved with other immigration firms in the past and has also...
Several new guidance documents on EU law free movement cases have been published by the Home Office over the last few days. They are: EEA family permits: guidance for entry clearance officers. This is an entirely new document aimed at Entry Clearance Officers abroad on how to assess and decide...
This is the latest installment in the sorry ETS saga. For background see this series of blog posts. The Home Office actually conceded the appeal before the hearing, but the Court of Appeal gave judgment anyway because of the backlog of cases depending on the outcome. The short version is...
In a surprising but very welcome development, the Government has reversed the 500% increase in fees for immigration appeals which took effect on 10 October 2016. Fees will instead be charged at the old rates and those who have paid the higher fees in the last few weeks will have...
Recently, after being introduced to someone, I mentioned that I work on statelessness policy. When faced with the confused look I am growing to recognise when I tell people about my work, I began to explain: some people don’t have citizenship of any country. He (thinking hipster-type ‘citizens of the...
There has been a massive batch of new guidance and forms issued today. At the time of writing these were the updates so far (updated 25/11/16): Application to extend stay in the UK as a partner: form FLR(M) Form UK Visas and Immigration Updated: 25 November 2016 UK ancestry Guidance...
In the cases of Hesham Ali [2016] UKSC 60 and Makhlouf [2016] UKSC 59 the Supreme Court has, finally, given guidance the correct approach to the determination of appeals against deportation decisions. Both the appeals were dismissed and the Home Office prevailed; but that is not the whole story and...
There is a new Practice Statement on what tribunal caseworkers (i.e. employed lawyers) can do instead of judges in the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber. Some of the functions are definitely ones I would consider to be judicial rather than administrative. I am not sure what has changed since...
Astonishing conduct by a judge: In summary, the Judge (a) engaged in a private conversation with the Appellant’s representative (b) in the absence of the other party’s representative (c) in the precincts of the court room (d) partly out of sight and earshot of the Appellant and his spouse (e)...
Written by Eleanor BONNER & Beate DASARATHY Following on from the Proving Torture conference in October last year which Free Movement wrote about at the time, Freedom from Torture has released a new report, ‘Proving Torture: Demanding the Impossible,’ which highlights UKVI’s significant failings when it comes to considering medical...
At the beginning of this month the Home Office brought into force new guidance on the suspension of removal directions for pending judicial reviews. There are two crucial changes to the policy: (1) At present, when a judicial review is brought within 3 months of a previous judicial review or...
Really interesting from Migration Observatory on trends in immigration criminal and civil penalty enforcement. It came out a few weeks ago but it has taken me until now to look at it properly (there’s a LOT going on at the moment!). From the key points summary: From 1999 to 2016,...
The Supreme Court has handed down the long awaited judgments in Makhlouf v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 59 on the impact of deportation on affected children and Hesham Ali v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 60 on the weight to be...
What do you get for your money when you pay for an oral over a paper hearing in the immigration tribunal? Since the introduction of much higher appeal fees in October 2016, the price difference is now between £490 for an “on the papers” decision and £80o for a proper...
The Home Office has made public its internal guidance for officials on the process and criteria for admitting children to the UK who were living in the Calais camp. The obligation to admit the children comes from section 67 of the recently passed Immigration Act 2016, a section otherwise known...
Quick note on something I spotted the other day while looking through tribunal statistics: waiting times and success rate for EEA appeals. According to the latest quarterly tribunal statistics, for April to June 2016, the latest EEA appeal waiting time (i.e. if an application is refused and an appeal is...
