Judge hung out to dry
19 July 2012
10 Comments
As we have previously argued on this blog here and here, attacks by newspapers on judges for following and applying the law are unwarranted and
As we have previously argued on this blog here and here, attacks by newspapers on judges for following and applying the law are unwarranted and
The Sunday Telegraph yesterday published an article singling out three Senior Immigration Judges as being excessively lenient. I am going to more or less ignore
Fresh off the press is the Government’s Statement of Intent: Family Migration which proposes not just to change but to direct the way in which
Theresa May has announced that people considered by Bullingdon Club alumni David Cameron and George Osborne to be ‘poor’ will be prevented from marrying or
Not very soft at all. Paragraph 364 of the Immigration Rules, which governs both the UK Border Agency and to a significant extent the immigration
In an interview with The Telegraph this weekend Home Secretary Theresa May appeared, at least to those wearing magic-rabidly-Eurosceptic-wishful-thinking-specs, to suggest that the UK Government was
As has been widely reported in the mainstream media, the Government proposes to scrap family visitor appeal rights. Again. The change is intended to come
Sometimes you just can’t make it up. The UK Border Agency has posted a video on YouTube of it crushing a van used by people
I have a new and cunning plan to solve the queues at Heathrow, save the Olympics and, as an added bonus, revitalise rock bottom morale
The European Commission has today given the United Kingdom two months to comply with European Union rules on the free movement of EU citizens and
The sudden collapse of the Immigration Advisory Service shocked the sector and left many clients without any way of obtaining their paperwork from their former
This blog congratulates Zane Malik of 12 Old Square, who was this week appointed to the Attorney General’s C Panel of ‘junior juniors’. Zane has made
Today’s report by the Children’s Commissioner, Landing in Dover, exposes gross double standards by UK Border Agency officials. The report reveals the existence of a
There was some coverage in the right wing press yesterday about a new Migration Watch ‘report‘ purportedly linking Eastern European immigration with youth unemployment. Migration
The Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine, has published a global review of entry clearance decision making. The findings are strongly critical
My attention was drawn to this article in The Observer of 6 November 2011. It seems that UKBA enforcement officers in Liverpool have been off
Prime Minister David Cameron has made yet another keynote speech on immigration. He seems hell bent on setting back race relations in this country by
I have so far refrained from any mention of cats, although I came THIS close to asking in examination in chief yesterday whether my clients
Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals,
In his speech on Monday addressing the long term causes behind the recent looting, David Cameron blamed the State. The communities that erupted need less
The UK Border Agency can be very generous and understanding when it wants to be. For some reason, Libyans currently in the UK whose visas
The minister with responsibility for legal aid, Jonathan Djanogly MP, has made a statement (reproduced below) on the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration. Once again,
Some or all of the staff at the IAS Bristol office have put together a press release and made a bid for independence. The text
Following the terrible news about the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration, their website has finally been updated with information for clients. The full text is
Rumours have been circulating over the weekend but the Legal Services Commission has now confirmed [UPDATES: see also BBC news story, Law Society Gazette story and comments and follow-up, Guardian
Am slightly behind the drag curve but I could not let pass that the chain of stores Lush Cosmetics has teamed up with the No
It looks like the 14 year rule may be for the chop. See this question and answer from Prime Ministers Questions yesterday: Mr Hollobone: … Under
On Tuesday I speculated on whether section 19 of the UK Borders Act 2007 might be brought into force. This was entirely speculative at the
It looks like family visit appeals may be axed. Again. Those who have been doing this a while will no doubt be afflicted by a
Finally one piece of good news to share: the Certificate of Approval (COA) scheme has been abolished and will no longer be in place from
The full text of the speech (yet to be delivered at the time of writing, which seems rather odd) is available on The Guardian website
In a clear signal of a return to Victorian values of the undeserving poor and salvation through faith, the Home Office is terminating its funding
[UPDATE 31/3/11: see Comments below for further information and updates] This interesting snippet of information recently came my way and I thought it was worth
The Chief Inspector of UKBA has today published critical reports of the entry clearance operations at Amman in Jordan and Istanbul in Turkey. Click here
The Government has announced a new ‘red carpet’ approach to immigration for the super rich: From April 6, investors who come to the UK and
The date has finally been announced for transfer of fresh claim judicial reviews into the Upper Tribunal: 1 October 2011. This has been coming for
The advice page on the UK Border Agency website for Libyans in the UK has been updated so that is now a bit more acceptable.
[UPDATE: see more recent post] Remarkable: “The UK Border Agency is aware that the visas of some Libyans may expire before they are able to
Immigration Minister Damian Green has authorised discrimination by visa officers on the basis of nationality. This follows on from a finding last year by
In his report late last year on the entry clearance operation based in Abu Dhabi, the ‘hub’ for processing claims from Pakistan and several Gulf
As we have previously argued on this blog here and here, attacks by newspapers on judges for following and applying the law are unwarranted and dangerous in a healthy democracy. In one recent such attack article, the Daily Mail named a particular immigration judge and published a paparazzi-style photograph of...
The Sunday Telegraph yesterday published an article singling out three Senior Immigration Judges as being excessively lenient. I am going to more or less ignore the issue of the correctness or otherwise of the principle of singling out judges based on outcomes of their cases. It is a very difficult...
Fresh off the press is the Government’s Statement of Intent: Family Migration which proposes not just to change but to direct the way in which the UKBA and Courts decide Article 8 cases. FM has recently discussed whether it is legally permissible to do this but, for the time being...
Theresa May has announced that people considered by Bullingdon Club alumni David Cameron and George Osborne to be ‘poor’ will be prevented from marrying or living together in the same area. In order that individual assessments need not be made, a threshold of £18,600 is being set to define poverty....
Not very soft at all. Paragraph 364 of the Immigration Rules, which governs both the UK Border Agency and to a significant extent the immigration tribunal and courts, states that, subject to human rights law (an important proviso), there is a presumption in favour of deportation where the Home Office...
In an interview with The Telegraph this weekend Home Secretary Theresa May appeared, at least to those wearing magic-rabidly-Eurosceptic-wishful-thinking-specs, to suggest that the UK Government was contemplating suspending free movement rights for southern Europeans if the Euro collapses: And what if a eurozone collapse sent thousands of economic migrants heading...
As has been widely reported in the mainstream media, the Government proposes to scrap family visitor appeal rights. Again. The change is intended to come into full effect in 2014 but as early as July 2012 the definition of ‘family’ will be narrowed to exclude cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces or...
Sometimes you just can’t make it up. The UK Border Agency has posted a video on YouTube of it crushing a van used by people smugglers. http://youtu.be/CUBlN9YEbWI As I understand it, the nine Kuwaiti migrants were removed first. So were the people smugglers. Although it doesn’t actually explicitly say so...
I have a new and cunning plan to solve the queues at Heathrow, save the Olympics and, as an added bonus, revitalise rock bottom morale at the UK Border Agency, which is by all accounts now falling apart at the seams of its soon-to-be-replaced uniforms. All Theresa May has to...
The European Commission has today given the United Kingdom two months to comply with European Union rules on the free movement of EU citizens and their families across the EU or face an EU court case. You can read the press release yourself here. The four issues highlighted are as...
The sudden collapse of the Immigration Advisory Service shocked the sector and left many clients without any way of obtaining their paperwork from their former lawyers. Following legal action by the Immigration Law Practitioners Association it will now be possible to obtain files on demand until 28 May 2012. Unlike...
This blog congratulates Zane Malik of 12 Old Square, who was this week appointed to the Attorney General’s C Panel of ‘junior juniors’. Zane has made a huge impact on immigration law in the last couple of years and it has become increasingly rare to see a judgment of the...
Today’s report by the Children’s Commissioner, Landing in Dover, exposes gross double standards by UK Border Agency officials. The report reveals the existence of a so called ‘gentleman’s agreement’ operating at the south coast ports whereby an unaccompanied child who did not make an immediate asylum claim would be returned...
There was some coverage in the right wing press yesterday about a new Migration Watch ‘report‘ purportedly linking Eastern European immigration with youth unemployment. Migration Watch statistical analysis has been covered here before. Even the report itself claims nothing more than a ‘gut instinct’ though: Youth unemployment in the UK...
The Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine, has published a global review of entry clearance decision making. The findings are strongly critical in important respects. The sample size was nearly 1,500 case files from every entry clearance post, so the review certainly was a global one. Vine...
My attention was drawn to this article in The Observer of 6 November 2011. It seems that UKBA enforcement officers in Liverpool have been off on their fishing trips at, amongst other places, the local bus and train stations, which to the best of my knowledge serve no international traffic....
Prime Minister David Cameron has made yet another keynote speech on immigration. He seems hell bent on setting back race relations in this country by forty years. Encouraging members of the public to rat on suspected illegal immigrant neighbours or work colleagues is hardly likely to promote community cohesion. It...
I have so far refrained from any mention of cats, although I came THIS close to asking in examination in chief yesterday whether my clients owned a cat… You can read the disputed determination for yourself here, courtesy of The New Statesman. You can also read the reasons for yourself....
Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals, previously covered here on the blog. The tone of the speech and the proposals is clear from the very first words: The vast majority of...
In his speech on Monday addressing the long term causes behind the recent looting, David Cameron blamed the State. The communities that erupted need less help, not more, it would seem. In some classic post-Blair, verb-free rhetoric, Cameron recited some rather tired soundbites (communities, rights, responsibilities, the usual). He also...
The UK Border Agency can be very generous and understanding when it wants to be. For some reason, Libyans currently in the UK whose visas are running out are being told that they don’t need to meet the rules required for an extension, they don’t need the right evidence and...
The minister with responsibility for legal aid, Jonathan Djanogly MP, has made a statement (reproduced below) on the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration. Once again, the emphasis is on transfer of files to new providers rather than on any attempt to salvage parts of the organisation. It looks like...
Some or all of the staff at the IAS Bristol office have put together a press release and made a bid for independence. The text is reproduced below. This follows from a mysterious comment signed off only as ‘IAS’ left on the original Law Society Gazette story yesterday asserting that...
Following the terrible news about the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration, their website has finally been updated with information for clients. The full text is reproduced below in case it changes or is taken down (complete with the wonky numbering of the original text). New information includes that IAS...
Rumours have been circulating over the weekend but the Legal Services Commission has now confirmed [UPDATES: see also BBC news story, Law Society Gazette story and comments and follow-up, Guardian story and subsequent FM post] that IAS, the largest provider of immigration advice and representation in the UK, has gone...
It looks like the 14 year rule may be for the chop. See this question and answer from Prime Ministers Questions yesterday: Mr Hollobone: … Under rules introduced in 2003, illegal migrants who manage to avoid the authorities for 14 years can apply for permanent stay, have full access to...
On Tuesday I speculated on whether section 19 of the UK Borders Act 2007 might be brought into force. This was entirely speculative at the time, but today I’ve heard rumours that this is indeed what is going to happen, and soon. However, I can find no relevant Commencement Order...
Finally one piece of good news to share: the Certificate of Approval (COA) scheme has been abolished and will no longer be in place from 9th May 2011. This was announced on the UKBA website on 7th April 2011 and is very welcome indeed. Of course, the announcement is slightly...
The full text of the speech (yet to be delivered at the time of writing, which seems rather odd) is available on The Guardian website and elsewhere. I want to concentrate on what future changes are being signalled in the speech. Before getting started, though, I count six uses of...
In a clear signal of a return to Victorian values of the undeserving poor and salvation through faith, the Home Office is terminating its funding for the fabulous Poppy Project for trafficked women and instead awarding a contract to the Salvation Army, the evangelical Christian missionaries known mainly for their...
[UPDATE 31/3/11: see Comments below for further information and updates] This interesting snippet of information recently came my way and I thought it was worth sharing. A Freedom of Information request recently revealed outcomes to the Legacy backlog clearance exercise: Number of cases granted Indefinite Leave to Remain = 145,843...
The Chief Inspector of UKBA has today published critical reports of the entry clearance operations at Amman in Jordan and Istanbul in Turkey. Click here for press release, here for the report on Amman and here for the report on Istanbul. In Amman, 55% of all cases were found to...
The Government has announced a new ‘red carpet’ approach to immigration for the super rich: From April 6, investors who come to the UK and invest £5m will be allowed to settle here after three years and those that invest £10m or more will be allowed to settle after two....
The date has finally been announced for transfer of fresh claim judicial reviews into the Upper Tribunal: 1 October 2011. This has been coming for some time and seems to have been held up by some confusion over the effect of BA (Nigeria). Section 53 of the Borders, Citizenship and...
[UPDATE: see more recent post] Remarkable: “The UK Border Agency is aware that the visas of some Libyans may expire before they are able to leave the UK, due to the current situation in Libya. Travellers transiting through Libya to other countries may also be affected. The agency appreciates that...
Immigration Minister Damian Green has authorised discrimination by visa officers on the basis of nationality. This follows on from a finding last year by John Vine, Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, that visa officers were discriminating against Pakistani visa applicants. See recent coverage here on the blog....
In his report late last year on the entry clearance operation based in Abu Dhabi, the ‘hub’ for processing claims from Pakistan and several Gulf states, the Chief Inspector of UKBA, John Vine, made a stark finding of racial discrimination by Entry Clearance Officers against Pakistani applicants for entry clearance:...
