Part 3 of the Immigration Bill gives a host of new, wide powers to immigration officers. A person with leave to enter arrives in at the airport. Schedule 19(1) and (2) – the first section of Part 3 – gives immigration officers the power to curtail leave, rather to simply...
The Immigration Bill 2015 was published on 17 September 2015. For now, this post provides links to further reading and resources on the Bill and also some commentary on the appeals sections, which are of the most direct interest to immigration lawyers like myself. I may update and perhaps republish the...
It has been announced today by Minister for Security and Immigration James Broken-shire that Part 4 of the Immigration Act 2014 is to be brought into full effect on 2 March 2015. This amends the procedure for marriage and civil partnership for everyone (not just foreign nationals) and creates new...
The Home Office often makes mistakes when exercising its immigration powers. The high appeal success rates bear testimony to this: as many as 50% of some categories of appeal are allowed. However, there are only some limited circumstances where it is possible to extract compensation from the Home Office by...
In HM and others (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2012] UKUT 00409(IAC) (“HM2”) the Upper Tribunal speculated: …we consider that so far as Article 15(c) is concerned the most likely development is that the levels of violence will either continue to reduce or remain at around the same level as in...
This post is a brief summary of the removals and nationality provisions of the Immigration Act 2014, and is accompanied by an audio extract from a seminar given by Colin Yeo, Sadat Sayeed, Mark Symes and I at Garden Court Chambers on 13 August 2014, at which I spoke on...
The story of Yashika Bageerathi has touched many. A bright student brought to the UK by her mother with her siblings to escape domestic violence at home in Mauritius, she has a promising future here if allowed to remain. Because she has turned 18 and is no longer a child, though,...
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has just published a damning report looking at the removals process at the Home Office. That the Home Office is not effective in conducting removals is hardly news to those of us who work in immigration law but even I was surprised by...
A new official report on Monitoring Places of Detention by an independent governmental monitoring body raises serious concerns about the immigration enforcement process. The private security contractors responsible are criticised for disproportionate use of force and restraint, unprofessional behaviour and use of ‘very offensive language’ in front of immigration detainees and...
The Home Office have started giving directions for the removal of failed asylum seekers to Mogadishu on Turkish Airline flights via Istanbul. Anyone given such removal directions might ask the Home Office to reconsider whether they risk violating their human rights in the light of the announcement by Al Shabaab...
Around 3,000 couples in England and Wales will tie the knot tomorrow (Saturday 15 February). According to a Home Office guestimate between 48 and 123 of these marriages will be ‘sham’, which is to say they will not be ‘genuine and subsisting’ as required by UK Immigration Rules. But what does...
I want to persuade you that our first task when faced with a social evil like the Immigration Bill is not to just to condemn but to understand it. I say that because those who fail to grasp the deeper motives driving this legislation will underestimate the magnitude of the...
The harsh reality of immigration law enforcement is dramatically exposed by the facts of the case of R (on the application of Shaw & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 42 (Admin). In this case a Jamaican woman and her five year old son who...
Many migrants and their families get caught in a situation where they apply to the Home Office for permission to stay, are rejected but then are unable to appeal the decision to the immigration tribunal. This has long been a problem (‘Refusal with no right of appeal revisited‘) but is...
The horrific news of sexual abuse by private security contractors at Yarlswood, the female-only immigration detention centre near Bedford, is awful and shocking. It is very far from the first time that problems or outright abuse at Yarlswood has been reported, though. Various examples from 2009 onwards can be found here, here, here,...
The London-based research group Corporate Watch has just published a 20-page briefing examining the lawfulness the UK’s mass deportation charter flights. Part of a forthcoming report by Corporate Watch and the campaign group Stop Deportations, it aims to provide campaigners and legal practitioners with some arguments and tools with which...
This last weekend saw Sarah Teather reveal the mindset of Government towards migration, explaining her frustration at the lack of alternative voices on migration. I have previously written about the need for responsible journalism, but in hindsight this was probably unfair on the media.
...Sir John Thomas has given a further warning to solicitors and barristers acting in urgent injunction applications. The case is R (on the application of Rehman) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 1351 (Admin). No names are named this time, at least not so far: In the present...
UPDATE: NOW IN FORCE. A few weeks ago David Cameron suggested that private landlords should be required to check the immigration status of tenants. Now, lo and behold, the measure is to be included in a new Immigration Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech. This such a Bad Idea it is...
As most of you know, Renaissance Chambers has developed expertise in conducting Tamil asylum claims. The issues involved in these cases have been previously covered on Free Movement here and these include in particular Chambers’ and the NGOs’ efforts to combat recent charter flights set by the UK Border Agency...
The Court of Appeal in the UK has very recently granted stays preventing the removal of asylum-seekers to Cyprus under Dublin II. The proceedings have been stayed pending the appeal against the judgment in EM (Eritrea) & Ors v SSHD [2012] EWCA Civ 1336. The cases are: – MD (Guinea)...
At 2pm today a group of injunction applications for Tamils facing removal to Sri Lanka by charter flight on 28 February 2013 were heard before Mr Justice Wilkie and Upper Tribunal Judge Gleeson. A suspension on the removal of all Tamil failed asylum seekers was ordered (copy here). The cases...
In asylum cases it is still referred to as The Legacy, as if it were a second rate Spagetti Western. In immigration cases it has the more prosaic title of the ‘migration refusal pool’. The UK Border Agency’s inspectorate has today [update: link to report here] unveiled yet more cases...
The President of the Queens Bench Division, Sir John Thomas, has issued a dire warning to solicitors applying for last minute judicial reviews and injunctions in immigration cases. The comments come in the case of R (on the application of Hamid) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012]...
It is Sri Lanka Charter Flight day again today. Just a quick one to say that the UK Border Agency has suddenly withdrawn parts of its new October 2012 Operational Guidance Note (link to old version) on Sri Lanka. Paragraphs 3.3.4 and 13.6 have been substantially amended (see TAG website for details)....
Human Rights Watch and a proxy terror front group -Freedom from Torture, clamored that the flights should be suspended because some ‘ethnic’ Tamils were subjected to cruel treatment in the island nation. This is what the Sri Lankan government’s own Ministry of Defence has to say about the charity Freedom...
How many torture claims from returnees to Sri Lanka are necessary before the UKBA and the Courts decide that the time has come for review? This graph (click link to see further details) attempts to collate the data from recent reports and compare it against a broad pattern of removals and shows...
Below is a list of materials which can be used in connection/in support of claims against decisions to remove on the charter flight(s) bound for Sri Lanka next week. The list will be updated as and when relevant materials are published and/or circulated, so watch this space. Not a comprehensive...
There are we understand two charter flights bound to Sri Lanka on the 19 and 20 September 2012. If detainees do not have solicitors then contact Janani Jananayagam from TAG [Tamils Against Genocide] who can be contacted on 07801 999130. She will direct detainees to solicitors who may be able...
In the jurisprudential equivalent of Easyjet and Ryanair flights simultaneously arriving at Stansted from Alicante, Malaga AND Lanzarote, a number of important cases have just been deposited in the luggage carousel that is BAILII. School is now out and the legal bigwigs will shortly be decamping to Tuscany, or wherever...
As expected, the obscure but important Chapter 53 of the Enforcement Instructions and Guidance (‘Extenuating Circumstances’) has been amended following on from the scrapping of paragraph 395C of the Immigration Rules. The new text is basically in line with the amended rules and is set out below for reference. It shifts the...
UPDATE: the order made by the Upper Tribunal is now available. A Tamil failed asylum seeker forcibly returned from the United Kingdom to Sri Lanka on 21 February 2012 has claimed that he was tortured on arrival. He was later interviewed by British officials. A medical examination arranged by the...
The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has addressed risk to Sri Lankan Tamils facing enforced removal in a new judgment recently reported by UNHCR. The judgment is in French but the UNHCR summary in English states as follows: [P]olitical opponents, critical journalists, human rights activists, critical NGO representatives, as well as...
EDIT 14/12/11: Treasury Solicitor letter to High Court regarding charter flight can be found here. Question: Who said this? We will continue to investigate any credible and relevant allegations and review our policy in light of any findings. Answer: Alistair Burt, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Afghanistan/South Asia, counter terrorism/proliferation, North America,...
NA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1172 This case concerned a challenge to the decision of the SSHD to remove the Claimant, and her infant daughter, to Latvia on Third Country grounds. The challenge failed but the Court made some important comments in...
Amnesty International have put together a training video for potential recruits to the private security firms contracted to carry out forced removals. It is well worth a watch. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldHz2ZJoxY&w=560&h=349] This is part of the campaign mentioned previously. Details on the Amnesty website here.
...Amnesty International has launched a campaign to change the way that the UK Border Agency conducts forced removals. The practices used by the private security contractors who do the dirty work for the Border Agency was highlighted earlier this year by the tragic death of Jimmy Mubenga. Follow this link...
