In what I calculate to be the fifth Supreme Court case addressing the meaning of the words used in Theresa May’s 2014 reforms of deportation law, the justices have rejected three linked Home Office appeals seeking to reinstate deportation orders ...

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 ...

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an Albanian woman’s judicial review challenge to a finding that she was not a human trafficking victim, holding that those deciding her case had handled it with the correct level of “anxious scrutiny” ...

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 R (Abulbakr) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1183 (Admin), the High Court has ordered the Home Office to pay a detainee £17,500 for 40 days of unlawful detention caused by unreasonable delay in providing a release address. ...

In a reasoned determination on costs, the High Court has found that a judicial review brought by seven West Midlands councils over unfair allocation of responsibilities for housing asylum seekers did not have a causal link to the eventual change in Ho ...

Does exploiting a domestic worker through human trafficking and modern slavery constitute “exercising” a “commercial activity” for the purposes of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 such that it falls within the exception to a ...

Marepally v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 855 is yet another long residence case, this time concerning a defective refusal notice. The appellant wanted to rely on the defect to argue that he had achieved ten years’ c ...

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 Upper Tribunal has rejected a challenge to the Article 8 compliance of the “deport first, appeal later” system despite previously having ordered the Home Office to bring the claimant back to the UK to ensure he had an effective appeal. ...

The High Court has declared that Home Office policy on allowing migrants to have access to public funds is unlawful for failing to take account of the best interests of children, or of a previous judgment along similar lines. The case is R (AB & o ...

The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal against the deportation of a Jamaican man who arrived in the UK aged ten. The case is SC (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 15. The judgment covers the application of the co ...

The High Court has provided a glimmer of hope for some Afghan citizens seeking urgent relocation to the UK through applications for leave outside the Immigration Rules. The case is R (S & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Or ...

When the Home Office is deporting someone for being convicted of a criminal offence, does it matter what country that conviction is from?   In practice, probably not. This seems to be the effect of the Court of Appeal’s decision in Gosturani v Secr ...

In the case of Velaj v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 767, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that Zambrano applications always require factual inquiries as to what would happen to the British dependant if their primary care ...

If your asylum or immigration application is refused by the Home Office, and you have a right of appeal, your appeal will be heard in the First-tier Tribunal (FTT). If you lose your appeal at the FTT, you may be able to appeal to the Upper Tribunal. B ...

When the Home Office withdraws a decision to deprive someone of their British citizenship, does the person get their citizenship back (prospective) or was it never lost in the first place (retroactive)? This was the deceptively simple question that th ...

Practitioners will no doubt be aware of the Supreme Court’s decision in AM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 17. The justices endorsed the European Court of Human Rights decision in Paposhvili v Belgium (applica ...

This was the unsurprising finding of the Upper Tribunal in R (Ashrafuzzaman) v Entry Clearance Officer (precedent fact; general grounds refusal) [2022] UKUT 133 (IAC). The exception is where human rights are involved (more on that later). Although the ...

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 ...

In C-349/20 NB and AB v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Court of Justice of the European Union has again addressed the question of when Palestinian refugees are entitled to refugee status under EU law. This is the fourth major judgment ...

In HA (expert evidence, mental health) Sri Lanka [2022] UKUT 111 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal considers whether the removal of a Sri Lankan man with mental health difficulties would violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 3 p ...

Expert reports are common in asylum and human rights cases. They usually address either the conditions in the applicant’s country of origin or their physical or mental health. The duties of an expert witness giving evidence in court are well establi ...

This decision forms the next episode in the saga of cases arising from the Test of English for International Communication (“TOEIC”) certificates obtained from test centres in the United Kingdom administering tests set by the Educational T ...

Are you a “foreign criminal” if you were a British citizen when convicted and sentenced, but you’ve lost that citizenship by the time the Home Office decides to deport you? Yes, said the Court of Appeal in Zulfiqar v Secretary of State f ...

Ali v The Home Office [2022] EWHC 866 (QB) is a successful appeal against the Central London County Court’s decision to dismiss the false imprisonment claim of a recognised Afghan refugee, detained for 98 days under the Detained Fast Track proc ...

The Court of Appeal has held that the unlawful removal of a vulnerable Afghan child and the 18 months of disruption to his private life entitles him to damages under the Human Rights Act 1998 and under EU law. The case is QH (Afghanistan) v Secretary ...

Deciding whether someone is of good character in the context of a citizenship application is up to the Home Office. Getting that decision overturned in the courts is likely to be very difficult. This is what we learn from the Court of Appeal’s decis ...

The Home Office has been ordered to make a decision in principle on an Afghan judge’s visa before making him come out of hiding to lodge a formal application. The case is R (JZ) v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affa ...

The Home Office has agreed to withdraw its decision to refuse asylum to a Ukrainian man who evaded the military draft, meaning that an appeal from the country guidance decision of PK and OS (basic rules of human conduct) Ukraine CG [2020] UKUT 314 wil ...

The High Court in COL v Director of Public Prosecutions [2022] EWHC 601 (Admin) has taken the Crown Prosecution Service to task for its decision not to charge the alleged traffickers of a victim of modern slavery. The claimant, a national of the Phil ...

The High Court has held that the Home Office’s search for and seizure of mobile phones from migrants who arrived by small boats from France, and the retention of extracted data, was unlawful. The case is R (HM, MA, KH) v Secretary of State for the H ...

Is the Home Office under a duty to provide information establishing a child’s nationality? This is the question considered by the Inner House of the Court of Session in AS v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] CSIH 16. Unfortunately, t ...

Someone correctly refused leave under the Immigration Rules as then in force is not the victim of a historical injustice, and therefore can’t rely on this as strengthening a subsequent Article 8 claim. So ruled the Court of Appeal in Rahaman & A ...