All Articles: Immigration news

Here’s your round-up of the immigration and asylum stories that made national headlines this week. Slavery law enforcement The Guardian has used Freedom of Information requests to establish that seven police forces have laid no charges under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 since it came into force. Section 2 of that Act makes...

26th January 2018
BY Free Movement

Here’s your round-up of the immigration and asylum stories that made national headlines this week. Orphan slave deported “Home Office accused of cruelty for ordering cannabis slave back to Vietnam”, the Guardian reported last Friday, just as I was writing last week’s review. Amelia Gentleman reports on the case of...

19th January 2018
BY Free Movement

Before I get into this week’s press coverage of immigration issues, an older piece I think I missed at the time. Before Christmas, Labour MP Kate Osamor visited an immigration removal centre – coyly unnamed, but “within earshot of an airport” – and wrote a powerful account of the visit...

12th January 2018
BY Free Movement

This is your weekly digest of immigration and asylum stories that have appeared in major news outlets (as distinct from specialist information, which you’ll always find on Free Movement already). I’ve been posting this on Monday mornings, but am going to try writing it on Fridays instead as I think...

5th January 2018
BY Free Movement

The year 2017 was not one that much troubled the goats, at least those hircine heroes whose hirsute hides historicise immigration legislation; 2017 will see no major Act of Parliament written in vellum which directly affects immigration law, unlike the years 2014 and 2016. Instead, 2017 turned out to be...

2nd January 2018
BY Colin Yeo

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The successful challenge to Home Office policy on rough sleepers from EU countries got top billing this week (see Sky News, among many others). Similarly widespread is the story of Kelvin Fawaz, the stateless boxing champion at risk...

18th December 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Theresa May’s government reached agreement with the European Commission on a first stage Brexit deal, which covers citizens’ rights (charmingly painted by the Telegraph as “the price of freedom”). Brexiteers are already offering interpretations of the deal that are odds...

11th December 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. You are unlikely to have missed many of this week’s crop of immigration stories. Take Brexit and the Court of Justice. The government has, supposedly, tabled proposals for the Supreme Court to be able to refer high-level...

4th December 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Some positive asylum stories in recent days: the value of outsourced asylum accommodation contracts is to double, according to the Guardian. There is an apparently similar attempt to right past wrongs at Brook House immigration removal centre, where operator...

27th November 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The economic effects of cutting immigration are in the eye of the beholder, it appears. The same study by PwC was variously reported as “Loss of skilled EU workers threatens UK growth” (Financial Times) and “Migration cut will...

20th November 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The government’s technical note on settled status for EU citizens was widely reported, with the right-wing press focusing on proposed criminal record checks (see Daily Mail and Telegraph). The European Parliament isn’t impressed, though, and says that the...

13th November 2017
BY Free Movement

“Have you news of my boy Jack?” Not this tide. “When d’you think that he’ll come back?” Not with this wind blowing, and this tide. “Has any one else had word of him?” Not this tide. For what is sunk will hardly swim, Not with this wind blowing, and this...

11th November 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. There has been renewed excitement about the notion of associate EU citizenship for UK nationals after David Davis said that he would “look seriously” at the idea (Sun). Our editor, though, points out that the idea is...

6th November 2017
BY Free Movement

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The Home Office has begun telling EU citizens to get out, writing to a man in immigration detention to suggest “you could avoid becoming destitute by returning to Romania or another EU member state where you could enjoy...

30th October 2017
BY cjmckinney

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Last week saw a flurry of Brexit business. Theresa May wrote an open letter to EU citizens living in the UK in a less than convincing attempt to reassure (Huffington Post). It was sent ahead of a...

23rd October 2017
BY cjmckinney

Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The fallout from now-notorious Home Office deportation letters, sent in error to EU citizens over the summer, continued last week as the government agreed to compensate 106 recipients of instructions to leave the country (Daily Mirror). Home...

16th October 2017
BY cjmckinney

The Right Honourable Sir Ernest Ryder, The Senior President of Tribunals has appointed Sir Peter Lane to be the Chamber President for the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber with effect from 2 October 2017. This is the first “internal” appointment of an immigration tribunal judge to the top immigration...

2nd October 2017
BY colinyeo

“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.” This was the introductory paragraph of Upper Tribunal Judge Wikeley in AF v SSWP (DLA) (No.2) [2017] UKUT 366 (AAC). When a judge expresses himself in this manner – and when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions supports all three grounds of appeal...

29th September 2017
BY paulerdunast

Three judges of the Upper Tribunal have examined 13 separate decisions of the same First-tier Tribunal judge and found them “wholly failing to meet the standards that are demanded by the office of a judge and expected by the parties”. The unreported judgment in AA069062014 & Ors. [2017] UKAITUR AA069062014 (30 August...

27th September 2017
BY cjmckinney

The Home Office has been in the news for what one judge described as a “prima facie case of contempt of court.” Officials are reported to have breached multiple orders for the return of asylum seeker Samim Bigzad from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom. Ultimately, though, in legal terms it is...

18th September 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Brian White, abandoned as a baby, lived in a Zimbabwean orphanage until the age of six. He was fostered, and later adopted, by the White family in Wolverhampton. He came to the UK to join the family when he was 15, at which point he should have been granted Indefinite...

11th September 2017
BY Paul Erdunast

The latest quarterly immigration statistics have been published. The headline is that net migration for the year ending March 2017 has reduced by almost a quarter, to 246,000 down from 327,000 in the year ending March 2016. The overall figure represents the lowest net migration figure since the year ending...

25th August 2017
BY Paul Erdunast

The Home Office has been criticised by the Court of Appeal for its “confused” and “messy” legal analysis in the matter of Secretary of State for the Home Department v Mosira [2017] EWCA Civ 407. The Secretary of State sought to apply refugee cessation provisions to a non-refugee deportee; rigidly...

26th June 2017
BY Rebecca Carr

It is the Queen’s Speech today. This sets out the legislative agenda for the coming Parliament in 2017 and 2018. But no party managed to win an overall majority in the General Election. We have what the political pundits and historians call a Hung Parliament in which there is a...

21st June 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Picking through various manifestos and public statements of the Democratic Unionist Party and its leading members reveals a few clues about the stance of the party on immigration issues. This may prove critical in the lifetime of the coming Government — whether that be days, weeks or months — because...

13th June 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Some people are posting up comparisons of different immigration policies of different parties. I cannot see the point. The result of the next General Election is a foregone conclusion and has been since Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader of the Labour Party. Surprisingly, some on the left even now do...

18th May 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 1078 was laid yesterday, 16 March 2017. It weighs in at 269 pages. Despite that, there was no space for any implementation of the MM judgment. The main headline changes are: Period of overstay before 12 month re-entry ban imposed reduced from 90...

17th March 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Take Trump seriously but not literally, said Peter Thiel, Paypal founder, Gawker litigation financier and prominent Trump supporter. Well, it turns out that Trump meant what he said. Literally. Muslims will be banned, literally. The wall will be built, literally. Mexico will pay for it, literally. President Trump's press sec...

29th January 2017
BY Colin Yeo

Following the narrow “yes” vote in the Early Christmas Referendum, Theresa May announced today that the United Kingdom will unilaterally change the date of Christmas in 2017. The Prime Minister stated in a speech at  Santa’s Grotto inNicholsons, Maidenhead that “Christmas means Christmas” and that despite a close result she will trigger...

24th December 2016
BY Colin Yeo

In a new case on dental age assessments, the tribunal has ordered that a young asylum seeker to undergo a dental x-ray and age assessment. If he refuses, his court case will be struck out. The case also gives general guidance on the correct approach to be followed in similar...

20th December 2016
BY Colin Yeo

The latest quarterly immigration statistics show that immigration to the UK for the year ended June 2016 was 650,000, the highest level ever recorded. Net migration stood at 335,000, just below the previous high of 2015. An estimated 49,000 more British citizens left the UK than returned from abroad. You can...

2nd December 2016
BY Colin Yeo

The Bar Standards Board has taken the decision to disbar Tariq Rehman of Kings Court Chambers in Birmingham. You can Google them if you want but I am not linking to them. Mr Rehman is understood to have been involved with other immigration firms in the past and has also...

28th November 2016
BY Colin Yeo

There is a major redesign coming soon to Free Movement. You can take a sneak peak at the new design here. It is not finished yet but we are getting close. There are also changes coming to pricing, membership structure and the way the website works to try and improve access...

23rd November 2016
BY Colin Yeo

The Chambers and Partners listings for 2017 were released last week and Garden Court Chambers has retained its position as the only top ranked London set of chambers for immigration law. The write up is very flattering: The foremost set leading the way at the London Immigration Bar, Garden Court Chambers houses...

8th November 2016
BY Colin Yeo

The Government has today lost a major case in the High Court on the issue of whether a Parliamentary vote is required before the Government issues notice under Article 50 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to the EU that the UK is leaving. If the...

3rd November 2016
BY Colin Yeo

On 16 June 2016, during a referendum campaign dominated by the issue of whether there are too many foreigners in the UK, Member of Parliament Jo Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times outside a surgery in her constituency. She later died from her injuries, leaving two young sons and a...

5th October 2016
BY Colin Yeo

Conveniently, David Davis MP, our new Minister for Brexit, made a detailed speech and wrote a detailed article on the subject of free movement and negotiations with the EU. From these we can see quite quickly that he does not like free movement. Of people, anyway. Towards the UK, anyway. He...

13th July 2016
BY Colin Yeo

Very useful update from my colleague Shu Shin Luh: R (Hossain and Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1331 (Admin) Mr Justice Cranston this week handed down judgment in Hossain & others v SSHD, the test case (with four representative claimants) on the lawfulness of the...

10th June 2016
BY Colin Yeo

The Immigration Act 2014 removed rights of appeal to an independent judge against refusal of many immigration decisions, replacing appeals with a system of internal review within the Home Office. It is called Administrative Review. The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has just published a report into how...

26th May 2016
BY Colin Yeo

In the first judgment of its kind since the suspension of the Detained Fast Track on 2 July 2015, the High Court struck down the Home Secretary’s refusal and certification of an asylum claim which was made in the structurally unfair and unjust Detained Fast Track (DFT) and ordered the...

25th May 2016
BY Shu Shin Luh
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