All Articles: Deportation
Briefing: what is the law on deporting foreign criminals and their human rights?
Deportation proceedings pit the rights of the individual against those of the state, appointed guardian of the public interest. And as very clearly stated in primary legislation, the deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest. The law ...
5th October 2023Court of Appeal quashes conviction of person trafficked in the UK as a child
In BSG v R [2023] EWCA Crim 1041, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of a young Somali citizen, who suffered ‘a clear injustice’ after being ‘groomed, exploited and threatened’ [para 57] by a human trafficking gang in the UK. Backgrou ...
21st September 2023No Windrush compensation for man whose ILR lapsed while imprisoned abroad
A claimant wrongly given a deportation order couldn’t benefit from the Windrush Compensation Scheme because his indefinite leave to remain had already lapsed, the High Court has held in R (on the application of Thompson) v Secretary of State for the ...
11th August 2023Court of Appeal provides further guidance on unduly harsh deportation test
The unduly harsh test in deportation cases has been subject to litigation for years and we have written about it in several articles, most recently in relation to the Supreme Court case of HA (Iraq). The Court of Appeal has now published its jud ...
30th May 2023Latest figures show only 8% of deportation appeals allowed on human rights ground only
Figures the Ministry of Justice was instructed to publish by the Office for Statistics Regulation show that just 8% of all deportation appeals lodged in 2020/21 were allowed on human rights grounds only. The one-off statistical release follows from th ...
21st November 2022Supreme Court pronounces on “unduly harsh” deportation test, again
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 ...
21st July 2022Challenge to “deport first, appeal later” process rejected
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. ...
28th June 2022Supreme Court allows foreign criminal deportation case
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 ...
16th June 2022Foreign convictions in deportation appeals
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 ...
14th June 2022Will Boris Becker be deported?
Boris Becker, three-time Wimbledon champion and many people’s favourite German, has been sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for offences under the Insolvency Act 1986. Assuming Becker hasn’t acquired British citizenship, will he be ...
10th May 2022Past British citizenship not enough to save murderer from deportation
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 ...
22nd April 2022Deportation law up for MORE revision: Supreme Court to hear appeal in HA (Iraq) case
The Supreme Court has circulated a list of cases that it has agreed to hear on appeal in the coming months. The list includes two liberalising deportation rulings from the Court of Appeal, HA (Iraq) and AA (Nigeria) which we hoped had finally put thi ...
21st December 2021What does the Human Rights Act consultation say about migrants’ rights?
The government has published its proposals for changing the Human Rights Act 1998. Not all the consultation questions will be of professional interest to immigration lawyers — for instance, there are sections on free speech and trial by jury ...
14th December 2021Man who has never left the UK avoids deportation after seven-year legal battle
A 38-year-old man born in the UK without British citizenship cannot be deported to a country he has never even been to, the Upper Tribunal has decided. The case is Akinyemi v Secretary of State for the Home Department (unreported, DA/00574/2014). Rem ...
7th December 2021The effect of deportation on children: Imran case reversed
In MI (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1711, the Court of Appeal continues to unpick pre-HA (Iraq) deportation jurisprudence, here reversing the Upper Tribunal decision of Imran (Section 117C(5); children, unduly ...
2nd December 2021Early guilty plea saves 75-year-old woman from deportation to USA
The seriousness of a criminal offence is a key factor in deportation cases. It is generally judged with reference to the sentence given by the criminal courts. But what happens when that sentence has been discounted due to an early guilty plea? Last y ...
22nd November 2021Reconciliation with victim a factor against deportation
In SM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1566, the Court of Appeal has reiterated the correct approach to deportation appeals involving the potential separation of children from their parents. This unusual appeal ...
9th November 2021Can children be deported from the UK?
Yes. Children can be removed from the UK as part of a family. They can, on paper, also be deported in their own right for criminal offending: the Home Secretary’s power of deportation under the Immigration Act 1971 is not limited to under-18s, a ...
8th September 2021Deportation of father not “unduly harsh” on child in loving home
A Jamaican man who has been in the UK for over 20 years must be deported, the Court of Appeal has confirmed. The court held that Logan Reid, 51, had not established that his deportation would be “unduly harsh” on his teenage son, given the ...
10th August 2021Supreme Court dismisses deportation appeal of man living in UK since he was 9
In Sanambar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 2 the Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal against deportation of an Iranian citizen who arrived in the United Kingdom aged nine in 2005. He had committed several knifepoint robber ...
16th July 2021Revocation of deportation orders under EU law after Brexit
Non-EU citizens can potentially have a deportation order against them revoked where they have acquired or could acquire rights as family members of EU nationals. Such opportunities will continue to be relevant to a specific group of people for some ye ...
30th June 2021Protections for EU citizens served with notice of deportation
When the Home Office want to deport an EU citizen who has committed a criminal offence it adopts a two-stage process. First it issues a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN). This lets the person know that the Home Office is considering deportation and i ...
29th June 2021“My passport is just my way out of here”: the Brits affected by deportation
Interviewer: What do you think it means to be British? Mary: It is a passport. To be British now, I’m sorry to say this, but it is a passport. That is it. That is what being British means to me. I have lost faith in the country which I used to call ...
23rd June 2021Rehabilitative work in the community no barrier to deportation
In Jallow v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 788 the Court of Appeal looked at the weight that should be given to the rehabilitation of a foreign national offender in their appeal against deportation. Not a great deal, conclu ...
9th June 2021Murderer’s bid to be deported foiled by extradition request
A convicted murderer and father of a Portuguese football star has lost a legal challenge arguing for his own deportation in order to get out of prison earlier than the Parole Board will allow. The case is R (Lopes) v Secretary of State for the Home De ...
3rd June 2021Criminality undermines strong private life case in deportation appeal
In KM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 693, the Court of Appeal concluded that someone with an otherwise “strong” case for remaining in the UK based on their private life might not have a “particularly str ...
20th May 2021Court of Appeal considers unduly harsh deportation test (again)
The Court of Appeal has considered, again, whether it is “unduly harsh” for British children to be separated from their father on the basis that he is a foreign criminal. The case is TD (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Departmen ...
13th May 2021Judges can decide after the hearing whether an out-of-country appeal is fair
Juba (s. 94B: access to lawyers) [2021] UKUT 95 (IAC) is the latest judgment dealing with the “deport first appeal later” policy, following on from the famous Kiarie and Byndloss case. In Juba, the Upper Tribunal has found that it was acceptable f ...
6th May 2021Ignore what the Immigration Rules say about deportation, Upper Tribunal says
In Bikanu (s.11 TCEA; s.117C NIAA; para. 399D) [2021] UKUT 34 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has confirmed that paragraph 399D of the Immigration Rules has no relevance to the human rights exceptions to deportation set out in section 117C(4)-(6) of the Nat ...
16th February 2021Deportation appeal not a “dress rehearsal” says Court of Appeal
Lowe v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 62 is about the role of the Upper Tribunal in deportation appeals. The role of an appellate court when reviewing the findings of fact made by the court below sounds straightforward: it ...
27th January 2021Minor offence can trigger deportation, human rights court confirms
The European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that the final offence committed by someone before deportation action is taken against them does not need to be particularly significant if they have a history of serious offending. In Munir Johanna v D ...
21st January 2021Supreme Court: no additional “exceptional circumstances” test in Zambrano deportation cases
In the case of Robinson (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 53 the Supreme Court has held that there is no “exceptional circumstances” test that applies in EU law to protect a non-EU national carer from depor ...
16th December 2020Is carrying a knife enough to get you deported?
Earlier this year the Court of Appeal looked at the meaning of an offence causing “serious harm” for the purposes of deportation law. Being convicted of such an offence is one of the ways a person can find themselves facing automatic depor ...
15th December 2020New unofficial policy on deporting Jamaicans who arrived as children reported
The Guardian reports that the Home Office has agreed with Jamaica not to deport Jamaican citizens who arrived in the UK under the age of 12. The scope of the reported agreement is unclear: it arises in the context of an upcoming deportation flight to ...
30th November 2020