The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 brought sweeping changes to asylum and immigration law in the UK. The Act distinguishes between people who made a protection claim before 28 June 2022, the commencement date of the Act, and those who claimed after ...

The Home Office has released a new Interim Guidance: Requesting a second opinion for an external medical report/Medico-Legal Report as part of their offender management caseworker guidance. The new guidance aims to “introduce an additional, clinical ...

There have been lots of different numbers and statistics relating to the UK’s asylum system mentioned over the last week. One of these is the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim. Depending on whether or not people ...

The Home Affairs Select Committee held an oral evidence session about Channel crossings and other key asylum issues last week. Since the evidence that was heard on Wednesday, figures and quotes have hit the headlines. Criticism of Suella Braverman has ...

A new report has been published this morning by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons on the controversial short term holding facility for refugees at Manston in Kent. The inspection took place in late July 2022, before the current Home Secretary, Suella Brav ...

Small boat crossings attract a lot of media and political attention. The images we see of refugees arriving on our shores clearly upset some people. The Conservative Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal in successive tweets, for example, says cross ...

The new Statement of Changes, published on 18 October 2022, has introduced yet another appendix to the Immigration Rules: Appendix Temporary Permission to Stay for Victims of Human Trafficking or Slavery. The new appendix will be added on 30 January 2 ...

The Home Office has put in place some immigration concessions and special visa schemes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This includes the very important Ukraine Family Scheme. The department’s “core plan” ...

The Ukraine Extension Scheme is one of the three visa schemes set up for people displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine (alongside the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family Schemes). All three Ukraine Visa Schemes result in a grant of three years ...

The outcome of an asylum case can sometimes depend not on what the individual person says happened to them but on the general situation in a particular country. The general situation for asylum seekers from several countries is determined by the Upper ...

It is now twenty two years since I first started work as an asylum lawyer at the Oakington detention centre, a converted former barracks near Cambridge. I have seen a lot of change to the asylum system in that time. But many of the changes have ultima ...

The European Court of Human Rights has handed down a significant judgment concerning the age-assessment process and rights of child asylum seekers. In Darboe and Camara v Italy (Application no. 5797/17), the court found that the Italian government had ...

OH v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKAITUR JR2021LON001003 concerns the rights of a dependant of an asylum seeker to work in the United Kingdom. OH challenged a decision to refuse his request to work whilst he was a dependant of hi ...

It has been reported that thousands of Russian men are fleeing their country in order to avoid being conscripted into the army. Miles long queues of cars have built up at the border into Georgia. This comes on top of the tens of thousands of young Rus ...

In its ongoing drive to reduce Channel crossings, the government has set its sights on arrivals from a “safe and prosperous” Albania. A marked increase in Albanian arrivals via the Channel have been reported over the past year, prompting the forme ...

The government’s new rules on inadmissibility in asylum claims have come into force and now apply to asylum claims made on or after 28 June 2022. These rules set out the circumstances where an asylum claim will be put on hold while the Home Office t ...

Too often, we all see clients who are at the mercy of the local authority housing system and who are shifted about from accommodation to accommodation with no real stability in their lives. This treatment only compounds the problems they already face ...

This post is a wrap up of recent Afghan evacuation litigation in the High Court and Court of Appeal covering the cases of: A lot of the issues cross-over so rather than give you a detailed breakdown of each case, I’ll explore the Court of Appeal’s ...

The current immigration rules on when a refugee may be joined by family members — often referred to as refugee family reunion — are woefully outdated and simply do not reflect the nature of modern families. Reform is long overdue. But in the meant ...

Afghan citizens trying to escape the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan have become caught up in the UK government’s latest attempt to revise refugee policy. They face significant obstacles in obtaining adequate protection. Those who have no choic ...

A Syrian refugee who paid £440 to secure settlement appointments despite being heavily in debt has lost a High Court bid to get his money back. The case is R (MS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1413 (Admin). Home Office poli ...

Last week, celebrities and charities joined forces to celebrate the bravery of Sir Mo Farah. In a BBC documentary, aired on 13 July, the Olympic gold medallist revealed that he was trafficked to the UK and forced into domestic servitude aged nine year ...

The 11th-hour European Court of Human Rights intervention that prevented the first planned removal of asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda has provided only scant relief to those who may soon find themselves being flown 4,000 miles away to an unk ...

The European Court of Human Rights has concluded that a maritime pushback operation conducted by Greek coastguards in 2014 violated the right to life of the 11 people who drowned in the process. The case is Safi and Others v Greece (application no. 54 ...

In SR (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 828, the Court of Appeal has considered whether an asylum seeker attending political demonstrations needs to be genuinely committed to the cause being promoted at the prote ...

The government has announced the details of its much-trailed policy of treating some refugees differently to others based on their mode of arrival in the United Kingdom. The Home Office refers to this as “differentiation” but the word ...

New rules on humanitarian protection status will apply to claims made on or after 28 June 2022. The changes are another example of how the government’s New Plan for Immigration is creating a crueller, less efficient and more costly asylum system. Ar ...

Asylum lawyers like me tend to focus on just one clause of the Refugee Convention: the definition of a refugee. This is the gateway to formal recognition as a refugee and is therefore of vital importance to any person seeking asylum. From this definit ...

Many in the immigration and legal aid sectors are heartily sick of “engaging” with government departments and responding to various consultations, but I want to encourage everyone to respond to this one. The Ministry of Justice is consulti ...

Whilst many of us were focused on the Rwanda flight, injunction applications and subsequent appeals, the government on 13 June 2022 made some further announcements about the long-delayed Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme. The glacial pace of progres ...

A few poor souls are bound for removal to Rwanda today. Whether or not the flight departs on schedule, this is a moment of national shame. One of the richest countries in the world, hosting one of the lowest numbers of refugees internationally, has pa ...

Below is an unofficial partial transcript of the Court of Appeal’s judgment refusing interim relief (an injunction) in the case of Public and Commercial Services Union and Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department. This was one of two ...

Asylum seekers arriving by boat have started to receive notices informing them of the UK government’s intention to remove them to Rwanda pursuant to the “Migration and Economic Development Partnership” announced last month. We learned ye ...

The Upper Tribunal judgment in SMO & KSP (Civil status documentation; article 15) Iraq CG [2022] UKUT 110 (IAC) comes as a relief for those representing Iraqi nationals who fear that they cannot be properly re-documented on return to Iraq. The cas ...

The signatories of the Refugee Convention thought that some people didn’t deserve protection on account of having committed particularly heinous crimes. They therefore introduced “exclusion clauses”, found at Article 1F of the Convention. Ac ...

The Home Office has published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 17). It is largely focused on changes to the asylum system following the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the agreement with Rwanda to export refu ...