This week the Sentencing Council published new draft sentencing guidelines for immigration offences within the Immigration Act 1971 and Identity Documents Act 2010. This includes offences expanded by the Nationality […]
A “returning resident” is a resident of the United Kingdom with settled status who returns to the country after a lengthy absence abroad. Ordinarily, when a person refers to “returning […]
The “no recourse to public funds” condition is imposed on grants of limited leave to enter or remain with the effect of prohibiting the person holding that leave from accessing certain defined […]
The UK is falling significantly short of international labour standards. In fact, the government’s labour migration policy and wider hostile environment actively produces risks of labour exploitation. In 2022, labour […]
Back in “Small Boats Week” during the summer, the government announced the tripling of employer penalties for illegal workers to £45,000 per worker. The immigration minister said that the increase […]
The government is going to triple the maximum level of fine that can be imposed on employers who fall foul of the regime penalising those who employ illegal workers. Currently […]
On 6 April 2023, the Home Office started data sharing with the financial sector again. This was foreshadowed in a speech by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on 13 December 2022. […]
One of the measures announced by Rishi Sunak in his asylum statement on 13 December 2022 was the re-starting of hostile environment immigration checks on bank accounts. These checks were […]
The Home Office response to small boat crossings is “both ineffective and inefficient”, the borders watchdog says. In an excoriating report published this morning, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders […]
The electronic monitoring of foreign national offenders is riddled with flaws which can be traced back to Home Office underfunding and inefficiency, an independent report has found. The Chief Inspector of […]
There is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and British and Irish citizens are able to cross the land border freely. Section 11(4) of the […]
A new law preventing migrants from using their residence permits to prove their right to rent or work in the UK is coming into force without robust parliamentary debate. From […]
How is the Home Office doing with implementing the lessons it is supposed to have learned from the Windrush scandal? In March 2020, the independent Wendy Williams review of the […]
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 […]
Despite intense ministerial focus on inflatable dinghies, most unauthorised entrants to the UK have traditionally arrived by lorry. In 2019, more than 10,000 people were discovered to have arrived in […]
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) is to inspect the relationship between the immigration system and the higher education sector. The call for evidence, which is open […]
In a previous briefing we saw that customary international law, four international conventions and international human rights law all impose a duty on states to rescue those in distress at […]
Regulation 9 of The National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 provides that the NHS in England cannot charge overseas visitors for treating a condition caused by torture, […]
The Home Office has rebuffed Public Law Project’s (PLP) latest attempt to find out more about the secret algorithmic criteria used to decide whether a proposed marriage should be investigated […]
Part 3 of the Nationality and Borders Bill 2021 includes provisions relating to immigration offences and enforcement. It criminalises arriving in the UK, as well as formally entering, making it […]
The Brexit vote, the triggering of Article 50, the failed May deal, the Johnson capitulation, the legal exit at the start of 2020 and the economic exit at the year’s […]
This is the question addressed by Scotland’s Sheriff Appeal Court in Galbraith Trawlers Limited v Advocate General for Scotland [2021] SAC (Civ) 15. Fishing boats impounded over illegal immigration charges […]
The government’s threat to increase its use of data matching is now becoming a reality with plans to expand the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). If implemented, the proposals would extend […]
The scenes in Glasgow last week, which saw a crowd prevent Immigration Enforcement from making off with two Indian men, got us thinking about the criminal offence of obstructing an […]
From the outside looking in, initial immigration enforcement decisions like that in Glasgow last week to detain a person often seem opportunistic and random rather than strategic. The result is […]
The UK and India signed a non-binding agreement on migration this week. The basic ingredients are to beef up cooperation on removing unauthorised migrants in exchange for a minor liberalisation […]
The latest episode of the Home Office’s dispute with rough sleeping migrants is here with the publication of the policy guidance for applying the “rough sleeping rule”. This article discusses […]
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) has confirmed that with lockdown easing, it is resuming sponsor licence compliance visits. Initial visits will be focused on organisations that have a pending sponsor […]
We’ve seen a constant drip of leaks about the UK’s “broken” asylum system and how the upcoming Borders Bill or Sovereign Borders Bill or New Plan For Immigration or whatever […]
The immigration authorities’ work on human trafficking and modern slavery produced just ten arrests and five prosecutions in two years, the immigration inspector has found. David Bolt’s report on the […]
In response to growing pressure, the government announced on Monday that no immigration status checks will be carried out for migrants getting the coronavirus vaccination. While Downing Street’s press release […]
The hostile environment should be reformed by selective repeal of key provisions, addressing Home Office culture and improved routes to regularisation, an influential think tank has found. Beyond the hostile […]
There has been an interesting and mainly polite (if tense) discussion on and off Twitter in recent weeks about advocacy on migrants’ rights. This is in part linked to a […]
Last month, UN special rapporteur on racism Professor Tendayi Achiume raised concerns about the impact of digital technologies on human rights. Achiume’s comments come at a time when governments are […]
The legal powers of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) have been much discussed in recent weeks. This month it is not the Labour Party in the figurative dock, […]
Right to Rent checks can be carried out online and in real time from 25 November 2020 onwards. Under the new scheme, landlords will be able to conduct checks on […]
Following the failings identified by the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Priti Patel promised a “compassionate… people first” Home Office. But over the past few months the Home Office seems to […]
Hot on the heels of this summer’s confected controversy over last minute legal challenges to removals of asylum seekers, the Court of Appeal has ruled that the Home Office’s ‘removal […]
The rise in reports of domestic abuse during lockdown is horrifying. Worldwide, the situation is so bad that it’s been dubbed a “shadow pandemic“. In the UK, calls to domestic […]
Inspectors observing a Home Office charter flight taking asylum seekers to France and Germany have found that coronavirus precautions were not followed. The report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons also […]
