Unsuccessful challenge to lack of legal aid for asylum interviews
27 August 2024
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A challenge to the lack of legal aid for young people who have turned 18 since first claiming asylum to have a legal representative attend
A challenge to the lack of legal aid for young people who have turned 18 since first claiming asylum to have a legal representative attend
The latest quarterly statistics show little movement on the asylum backlog, which was to be expected given the Home Office was not making many decisions
The latest modern slavery statistics show that the record low grant rate noted in the previous update have continued in the period April to June
This post is for those working with children and young people from Sudan in refugee status determination and humanitarian protection. New country of origin information
When does the risk of suicide on removal trigger the article 3 threshold? Tragically, the question surfaces more often than it should. Cases of this
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published two reviews as part of their ongoing work in the sector, one is a review of asylum legal services
As the third anniversary of the Operation Pitting flights loom, the Home Secretary has finally announced a scheme, Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme Pathway 1 Stage
In response to the judicial review claim R (MS) v SSHD AC-2024-LON-000866, the Home Secretary has admitted a practice of intentionally delaying claims for temporary
Last week the asylum process formally got moving again as the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024 came into force and so I thought
A claimant has successfully challenged a move from his asylum accommodation after a failure on the part of the Home Office to engage with the
The Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024 have ended the prohibition on grants of leave for people who have claimed asylum. The effect of
A recent response to a Freedom of Information request shows that there has been a sharp increase in the number of people being invited to
The process for identifying and supporting survivors of trafficking has been seriously degraded over the past couple of years and in this article I look
Due to the stated position of the previous Conservative government that there would be a removal flight to Rwanda on 24 July 2024, a High
The Asylum Support Tribunal has found that there is a right of appeal against a decision to stop a person’s asylum support where their asylum
The Home Office introduced immigration concessions and special visa schemes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These were the Ukraine family
Over and over again we hear that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country the reach. There are variations on the theme. Genuine
This piece is about refugees, asylum seekers, and the Refugee Convention. It outlines who can be a refugee, and how being a refugee and having
One of the changes wrought by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (remember that?) is an apparent increase in the standard of proof in refugee
Lawyers do not own the word “refugee”. The term has been in use since the eighteenth century and has its own evocative, wider meaning in
Shortly after it received Royal Assent last year, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 was described as “utterly unworkable and extortionately expensive”, “deeply unethical” and “a
The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from
After over two and a half years of children being held in inhumane conditions on Diego Garcia, the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean
The Home Office has published statistics for the period January to March 2024 showing a marked drop in the grant rate for asylum cases, tens
All successful applications for asylum or humanitarian protection in the UK result in the grant of five years leave to remain, on what is known
The Upper Tribunal has found the guidance to be used those who cannot travel to enrol their biometrics because it is unsafe to be unlawful.
This blog explains why Asylum Aid continues to believe that the Home Office’s interpretation of the Safety of Rwanda Act as excluding consideration of “onward
As I explained in a previous blog, in its June 2023 judgment in AAA & Others v SSHD, the Court of Appeal accepted Asylum Aid’s
The latest modern slavery statistics have been published and show that the ‘immigration enforcement competent authority’ had made its lowest percentage of positive conclusive grounds
On Monday the Home Office updated the guidance documents relating to removals to Rwanda and retroactively amended the Rwanda agreement to include the possibility of
Following a legal challenge, the small group of Sri Lankan people seeking asylum in Diego Garcia have been granted bail so that they are able
Leigh Day, instructed by Asylum Aid, have today sent a pre action letter challenging the lawfulness of certain aspects of the Safety of Rwanda guidance
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report on the Afghan relocation and resettlement schemes reveals yet another undisclosed pause on cases, this one
The second part of a challenge to the family reunion rules that exclude child refugees from bringing their family to the UK has been dismissed
I have set out below what the legal process is for sending a person to Rwanda following the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act
The Court of Appeal has rejected a claim that Afghan nationals have been unlawfully treated less favourably than Ukrainians when it comes to the requirement
In what is a day of enormous shame for any right thinking person in this country, the UK’s treaty with Rwanda has today been ratified
The Home Office has published its latest “ad hoc” statistics release, showing a dramatic increase in the number of Vietnamese people coming to the UK
Almost two years after changes were made by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to the standard of proof, we have our first reported decision
The backlog of cases in the inadmissibility process was in the news again last week following senior Home Officials’ evidence session at the Public Accounts
A challenge to the lack of legal aid for young people who have turned 18 since first claiming asylum to have a legal representative attend their asylum interview has been dismissed by the High Court. The case is R (Alhasan) v Director of Legal Aid Casework & Anor [2024] EWHC...
The latest quarterly statistics show little movement on the asylum backlog, which was to be expected given the Home Office was not making many decisions due to the Illegal Migration Act. Following restrictions to the ability of people to bring their immediate family to the UK with them, we have...
The latest modern slavery statistics show that the record low grant rate noted in the previous update have continued in the period April to June 2024, with positive decisions made by the immigration enforcement competent authority at around 20% for both stages of the trafficking identification process. Background: how does...
This post is for those working with children and young people from Sudan in refugee status determination and humanitarian protection. New country of origin information is available. The resource, published by the charity Asylos, aims to assist evidence-based decision-making. Situation for children and young people in Sudan In April 2023,...
When does the risk of suicide on removal trigger the article 3 threshold? Tragically, the question surfaces more often than it should. Cases of this kind are notoriously difficult to win, but certainly not impossible. This post will offer practical tips to practitioners handling such a case. The case law...
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published two reviews as part of their ongoing work in the sector, one is a review of asylum legal services and the second a review of training records. These reviews contain some important points and should be read carefully by solicitors working in immigration and...
As the third anniversary of the Operation Pitting flights loom, the Home Secretary has finally announced a scheme, Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme Pathway 1 Stage 2, that will allow for evacuated families to be reunited. Background In August 2021, the world watched in horror as the Taliban began to overwhelm...
In response to the judicial review claim R (MS) v SSHD AC-2024-LON-000866, the Home Secretary has admitted a practice of intentionally delaying claims for temporary permission to stay made by asylum seeking trafficking victims who were at the time earmarked for possible removal to Rwanda. The pause, which was not...
Last week the asylum process formally got moving again as the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024 came into force and so I thought it was a good opportunity to review the highs and lows of last year’s backlog clearance exercise. The impact assessment for the new regulations provides...
A claimant has successfully challenged a move from his asylum accommodation after a failure on the part of the Home Office to engage with the evidence as to why the move was unsuitable because of his particular circumstances. In his case those circumstances were that he had won a scholarship...
The Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024 have ended the prohibition on grants of leave for people who have claimed asylum. The effect of the regulations is to consolidate the inadmissibility backlogs as broken down by me previously. All cases currently sitting in the inadmissibility process will now be...
A recent response to a Freedom of Information request shows that there has been a sharp increase in the number of people being invited to more than one substantive asylum interview. In 2022, a total of 4,144 asylum applicants were invited to more than one substantive interview. In 2023 this...
The process for identifying and supporting survivors of trafficking has been seriously degraded over the past couple of years and in this article I look at the position in relation to grants of leave made to those people who have been identified as survivors of trafficking. Some recent decisions considering...
The Asylum Support Tribunal has found that there is a right of appeal against a decision to stop a person’s asylum support where their asylum claim has been deemed withdrawn by the Home Office, for example where the substantive asylum interview was missed. The Home Office guidance “Ceasing Section 95...
The Home Office introduced immigration concessions and special visa schemes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These were the Ukraine family scheme, Ukraine extension scheme, and Homes for Ukraine scheme. The department’s “core plan” was to issue visas rather than formal refugee status to Ukrainian citizens,...
Over and over again we hear that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country the reach. There are variations on the theme. Genuine refugees claim asylum in the first safe country. Refugees should or even must claim asylum in the first safe country. The asylum seekers coming to...
This piece is about refugees, asylum seekers, and the Refugee Convention. It outlines who can be a refugee, and how being a refugee and having “refugee status” are two very different things. We also explore the rights and entitlements available to refugees and to asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of...
One of the changes wrought by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (remember that?) is an apparent increase in the standard of proof in refugee status claims. This change applies to everyone who applied for asylum on or after 28 June 2022. There has been a huge waiting time for...
Lawyers do not own the word “refugee”. The term has been in use since the eighteenth century and has its own evocative, wider meaning in the public consciousness. Those fleeing Ukraine or relocating to the United Kingdom from Hong Kong can validly be referred to as “refugees”, for example, even...
Shortly after it received Royal Assent last year, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 was described as “utterly unworkable and extortionately expensive”, “deeply unethical” and “a traffickers’ charter”. Despite those comments by the shadow Immigration Minister, Labour has not committed to repealing the Illegal Migration Act. However I am hopefully not...
The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small...
After over two and a half years of children being held in inhumane conditions on Diego Garcia, the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territories has ruled that key safeguarding provisions of the 1989 Children Act apply to the territories. Background In September 2021, a group of Tamil asylum...
The Home Office has published statistics for the period January to March 2024 showing a marked drop in the grant rate for asylum cases, tens of thousands of EU Settlement Scheme applications rejected as invalid, and a fee waiver backlog that seems to be rapidly spiralling out of control. My...
All successful applications for asylum or humanitarian protection in the UK result in the grant of five years leave to remain, on what is known as a “protection route”. People granted leave on a protection route are then eligible to apply for settlement on completion of those five years. Their...
The Upper Tribunal has found the guidance to be used those who cannot travel to enrol their biometrics because it is unsafe to be unlawful. The individual refusal decisions were also quashed. The linked cases are RM and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2024-LON-000082 and WM...
This blog explains why Asylum Aid continues to believe that the Home Office’s interpretation of the Safety of Rwanda Act as excluding consideration of “onward removal” (where someone is removed from Rwanda) claims is wrong and that this guidance is therefore unlawful. We believe that properly interpreted, the Act permits...
The latest modern slavery statistics have been published and show that the ‘immigration enforcement competent authority’ had made its lowest percentage of positive conclusive grounds decisions confirming that a person is recognised as a victim of trafficking since it was set up, with a recognition rate of 20.68% for the...
On Monday the Home Office updated the guidance documents relating to removals to Rwanda and retroactively amended the Rwanda agreement to include the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers there. This was done via a letter from the British High Commissioner in Rwanda to Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary Ministry of Foreign...
Following a legal challenge, the small group of Sri Lankan people seeking asylum in Diego Garcia have been granted bail so that they are able to access more of the island beyond the tiny encampment they were kept in previously. We have previously published a post providing the historical context...
Leigh Day, instructed by Asylum Aid, have today sent a pre action letter challenging the lawfulness of certain aspects of the Safety of Rwanda guidance that was published on Monday 29 April 2024. The pre action letter is being shared widely within the immigration law sector (see below) so that...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report on the Afghan relocation and resettlement schemes reveals yet another undisclosed pause on cases, this one relating to grants of entry clearance for those who met the requirements of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP). Between October 2022 and March...
The second part of a challenge to the family reunion rules that exclude child refugees from bringing their family to the UK has been dismissed by the High Court. The case is R (DM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees intervening) [2024]...
The Court of Appeal has rejected a claim that Afghan nationals have been unlawfully treated less favourably than Ukrainians when it comes to the requirement to enrol biometrics as part of an entry clearance application. The case is R (AB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA...
In what is a day of enormous shame for any right thinking person in this country, the UK’s treaty with Rwanda has today been ratified which means that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration Act) 2024 which received Royal Assent today is now in force. On 22 January 2024...
The Home Office has published its latest “ad hoc” statistics release, showing a dramatic increase in the number of Vietnamese people coming to the UK and a 24% increase in people detected crossing the Channel so far in 2024. The statistics were published to support the Prime Minister’s speech in...
Almost two years after changes were made by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to the standard of proof, we have our first reported decision from the Upper Tribunal on how the assessment of whether a person’s fear of persecution is “well-founded” should be carried out. The case is JCK...
The backlog of cases in the inadmissibility process was in the news again last week following senior Home Officials’ evidence session at the Public Accounts Committee on Monday. This article looks at legal arguments that can be made in relation to the Home Office’s delay in making admissibility decisions for...
