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 do...
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 Administrative...
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 blamed...
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 a...
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 the...
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 has...
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 into administration: Immigration Advisory Service announce...
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 the...
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 Immigration...
[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:...
With New Year Celebrations follow the dreaded New Year Resolutions, well for most of us anyway… And so this year, it is my task today to remind and urge as many of you as possible to respond within the consultation to the Green Paper proposing drastic cuts in legal aid. ...
I thought I’d start putting together a list of the myriad ways in which the Home Office wastes money (mainly public funds, also private sometimes) in the small world of immigration. It makes my blood boil that legal aid is being brutally slashed in immigration and across the whole area of...
I have struggled to write anything that would do justice to the late David Burgess, who died a few weeks ago. I cannot let his death pass without acknowledgement on this website, though. He died under an underground train and murder charges have been brought. It is a tragically early...
A doctor ‘is no longer considered an acceptable professional person’ by the Home Office. The quotation is taken directly from an email from a policy adviser in the UKBA Nationality Group. Doctors were quietly dropped from mention in the application form for British citizenship and removed from the UKBA list...
It is a shame to come back on a sour note, but it is difficult not to be cheerful about the ruin of Phil Woolas, ex Immigration Minister. He has been stripped of his constituency, barred from standing for public office for three years and has earned himself a prominent...
I am back from my very pleasant holidays and thought I would kick off what feels like a new season with some juicy gossip. Many lawyers in the sector will know that ex immigration judges (then plain old adjudicators, in fact) Patricia Skitmore, John Disley and Harry Mitchell QC joined...
An unpublished UKBA internal investigation has rejected the complaints made by Louise Perrett about the Cardiff asylum team. A summary has been made available. The existence of the ‘grant monkey’ was confirmed, but seems to have been found to be entirely benign. No racial overtones to it, then, and no questions...
