All Articles: Asylum

The Home Office has updated its “Allocation of asylum accommodation” guidance so that a list of people who were previously excluded from the Bibby Stockholm, Napier and the other ex-Ministry of Defence sites and from having to share a bedroom, can now be accommodated in these places. The euphemism being...

14th March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

As the government’s Rwanda plan continues to court controversy, there is one area of their policy which by their measures could be seen to be succeeding: their efforts to stop Albanians from seeking refuge in the UK. Since 2019, the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre...

13th March 2024
BY Richard Crellin

A guidance change made in July 2023 is affecting the ability of the new-born babies of refugees to obtain refugee status. This is an issue that affects a limited group of people, namely those who have been granted refugee leave for five years, and have a child born in the...

8th March 2024
BY Stewart MacLachlan

This is another successful challenge from a former Afghan judge who was unlawfully excluded from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme (ARAP). The case is MP1, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for Defence [2024] EWHC 410 (Admin). Background MP1 worked as a criminal defence lawyer...

7th March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

This is our write up of the first of the Home Secretary’s recent dump of the much delayed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The one point I will make from the outset is that anyone who is working on Albanian claims should read the relevant...

6th March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

A few days before the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a series of sweeping changes to the Ukraine schemes, giving just four hours’ notice of their implementation. Among the most significant changes are the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme, and a new...

4th March 2024
BY Dmitri Macmillen

Following a request from the Chairs of the Public Accounts and Home Affairs Committees, the National Audit Office has published a report on the costs to date of setting up the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda. The report also looks at the basis on which future costs would...

1st March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The latest immigration and asylum statistics have been published today. We have highlighted some of the interesting data below on asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, fee waivers and student and work routes. Page contentsAsylumInadmissibilityHomelessness of refugeesLarge drop in attendance by Home Office presenting officers at asylum appealsFee waiversEU Settlement SchemeStudentsWorkConclusion Asylum...

29th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has gone to town on a First-tier Tribunal decision for the second time in as many weeks, this time allowing an appeal in an asylum claim from an Iranian national. The case is FA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ...

29th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has confirmed that the Home Secretary’s “Discretionary Leave” guidance, version 10, published on 16 March 2023 is unlawful to the extent that it excludes victims of trafficking who had been accepted by the Home Office to be a victim before 30 January 2023 and had, before that...

28th February 2024
BY Eva Maria Doerr

In the latest case challenging a decision made under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, the High Court has quashed the refusal decision on the basis that it was not supported by the evidence that had been provided in support of the application. The case is R (MA) v Secretary...

23rd February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Although now largely eclipsed by the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022’s legacy will be its criminalisation of the act of seeking asylum in the UK. This article aims to give an overview of the changes to the law. Entry vs arrival By way of background,...

22nd February 2024
BY Larry Lock

Having presumably learned from their much criticised mishandling of certain trafficking cases, the government published a statement yesterday stating that they have paused consideration of asylum claims from a certain group. Those affected are people who arrived on or after 1 January 2022 and who received a notice of intent before...

15th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In a recent decision, Mohammed Ismael Suliman Abdullah for judicial review [2024] ScotCS CSOH_8, the Court of Session clarified that when a young person is seeking for a court to make a finding in relation to their age in Scotland, the action should be raised as a declarator of age...

13th February 2024
BY Francesca Sella

A new version of the modern slavery statutory guidance was published in January, adding some protections for people who are at risk of being disqualified from trafficking support due to a public order offence. These changes were made following the Home Secretary’s concession of a judicial review challenge to guidance...

9th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The government has launched a formal and anodyne-sounding “Consultation on reforms to social housing allocations“. It proposed a new series of bars to being allocated certain types of social housing, including a “UK connection test” which would be passed by being a British citizen, EEA citizen with equal treatment rights,...

9th February 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The Home Secretary has been told by the Asylum Support Tribunal to re-make the decisions to stop the asylum support for three people who refused to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge. In doing so the tribunal also set out the process that should be followed for any such decisions...

8th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has quashed decisions refusing leave to two journalists under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, known as ARAP. ARAP governs the circumstances in which the UK will grant leave to relocate to the UK to people who are at risk because they worked for or alongside UK...

6th February 2024
BY Keelin McCarthy

The short answer is “yes, criminals can be denied refugee status.” There is a moral dimension to the Refugee Convention. But the criminal offence or offending must be particularly serious in nature. The offending or behaviour must be serious in nature because denying refugee status to a person and sending...

2nd February 2024
BY Colin Yeo

Gender-based violence is an umbrella term used to describe crimes including rape, domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Women who are fleeing gender-based violence from their country of origin and enter the UK can seek protection and claim asylum in the UK on this basis. As practitioners who...

23rd January 2024
BY Francesca Sella

On 13 December 2023 the Home Office announced that the rates of additional payments made to pregnant asylum seekers and children under 4 years old under Regulation 10A of the Asylum Support Regulations 2000 would be increased in line with the Department of Health and Social Care’s ‘Healthy Start’ scheme....

16th January 2024
BY Aiya Nakash

On 21 December 2023 the Immigration Minister published a letter setting out a concession for people who wish to make an application to the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route but who are currently in the UK without permission. A formal Ministerial Authorisation under the Equality Act 2010 has also...

12th January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024 providing for the use of scientific age testing of children have come into force on 10 January 2024. A reminder of the response from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to these proposals: Evidence shows that using x-rays to determine age can...

11th January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The latest statistics from the Home Office break down the “flow” backlog (i.e. asylum claims made on or after 28 June 2022) into three separate groups. It is important to understand the different ways that they are treated, all of which involve the inadmissibility process in some way. Taking them...

11th January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 were brought into force) by the end of 2023. Yesterday he claimed that this goal had been achieved, despite the government’s statistics...

3rd January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

A new version of the Home Office caseworker guidance “Withdrawing asylum claims” has been published, halving the amount of time people are given to explain reasons for missing an interview as well as setting out some additional steps for those who miss an interview. You can see a comparison of...

21st December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary must set out a lawful plan to completely end its use of hotels for accommodating lone refugee children. This is the conclusion of Judge Chamberlain in  R (on the application of Kent County Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 3030 (Admin). The case...

12th December 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The Safety of Rwanda (Immigration and Asylum) Bill has been published. There is no explanatory memorandum that I have seen, so I have done my best without that to explain what is in the Bill. As was the case with the Illegal Migration Bill, it begins with a declaration by...

6th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The text of the UK’s new treaty with Rwanda to relocate people seeking asylum here to Rwanda instead has been published. For reference, the previous memorandum of understanding is here. Much of the treaty is just an expanded version of the memorandum, for example Article 11 in both deals with...

6th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

Changes have been made to the evidence refugees need to apply for Universal Credit and they should now be able to access this with their grant letter and Asylum Registration Card (ARC). We have previously covered the issue of Home Office changes to the notice period for stopping asylum support...

4th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The asylum system seems finally to have turned a corner: the asylum backlog is starting to fall. The backlog is the single most important problem with the asylum system. Unlike arrivals, it is something the government can control. It creates huge financial costs for the taxpayer. It sucks money out...

28th November 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The two statutory instruments that will pave the way for the use of x-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of children’s bones and teeth for the purpose of immigration control are on track to be approved by Parliament. This is despite concerns being raised around the inability for children...

24th November 2023
BY Kama Petruczenko

This post reflects on Wednesday’s momentous Supreme Court decision in the Rwanda litigation. You can read Colin’s initial take on the judgment here. The Supreme Court’s decision To recap, the Supreme Court decided that there are substantial grounds for believing that the removal of any asylum seeker to Rwanda under...

20th November 2023
BY Jed Pennington

Immigration lawyers tend to have a good grasp of the definition of a refugee. We can confidently recite the “well-founded fear” definition at Article 1(A)(2) of the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees (the “Refugee Convention”) which, if met, can lead our clients to a grant of refugee status....

16th November 2023
BY Jasmine Quiller-Doust

The Supreme Court has today held that Rwanda is not a safe country and that it would be unlawful for refugees to be removed there. The government’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s judgment has been dismissed. Lord Reed, giving the court’s judgment, emphasised the non-political nature of the court’s role,...

15th November 2023
BY Colin Yeo

Draft regulations have been laid which will add India and Georgia to the list of ‘safe’ countries at section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Amendment to List of Safe States) Regulations 2024 need to be voted through by both...

9th November 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

An Iranian refugee who, according to MI5, holds an Islamist extremist mindset and is supportive of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), has won his appeal against revocation of his refugee status. If the Home Office decides to revoke a person’s refugee status, there is a right of...

8th November 2023
BY Iain Halliday

The UK government is limiting evacuations from Gaza to British citizens only, forcing families to separate if any of them are to be safe, leaving others in extremely dangerous circumstances. It has been one month since the war started, and Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza has intensified during this time....

7th November 2023
BY Pip Hague

As anticipated, the latest published trafficking statistics covering July to September 2023 show a substantial reversal in the number of refusals at reasonable grounds stage, although these are still far higher than before the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. How does the modern slavery protection process work? Firstly, a potential...

2nd November 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Office has explained in newly published guidance ‘Asylum decision-making prioritisation‘ how they will decide the order for decision making of asylum claims. This provides some much-needed clarity to the process. As anyone working in the sector can tell you, there is no fixed timeframe for an asylum claim...

1st November 2023
BY Katherine Soroya
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