The immigration system has been through a lot since I started covering it for Free Movement five years ago. In September 2017, the UK was still in the two-year countdown to leaving the European Union, and there were even doubts about whether it would ...

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 and Immigration found that the s ...

Yesterday the Home Office published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 511). It allows unaccompanied children to come to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme if they have notarised parental consent. This comes into force on 1 ...

A Syrian refugee who paid £440 to secure settlement appointments despite being heavily in debt has lost a High Court bid to get his money back. The case is R (MS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1413 (Admin). Home Office poli ...

Past lack of Comprehensive Sickness Insurance is no longer an issue for EU nationals trying to get their British citizenship, revised Home Office policy says. As we discussed on the podcast only recently, certain EU citizens (principally those here as ...

People from New Zealand are in line for more generous Youth Mobility visas, the Home Office has announced. Kiwis will be eligible up to the age of 35 — rather than 30 for other nationalities — and be able to stay in the UK for three years ...

Conditions at a notorious asylum accommodation centre in Kent have improved, a watchdog reports. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, said his team had “observed conditions at Napier Barracks that should have ...

Zambrano carers who already have permission to stay in the UK under the Immigration Rules cannot use the EU Settlement Scheme as a fast track to permanent residence, the Home Office has confirmed. The department announced today that it would not be ch ...

Lawyers will argue today for a pause on removals to Rwanda after the High Court rejected an initial bid on Friday evening. At 10am, three judges will hear an appeal against Mr Justice Swift’s 10 June decision not to grant interim relief. The jud ...

Home Secretary Priti Patel has refused to meet the immigration inspector since he took up the job over a year ago. David Neal told the Home Affairs committee of MPs this afternoon he was “disappointed that I’ve not spoken to the Home Secre ...

Hot off the virtual presses over at legislation.gov.uk: the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (Commencement No. 1, Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022 No. 590). The instrument brings into force, on 28 June, around a third of t ...

The High Potential Individual visa went live at 9am today. It is a new route allowing people to live and work in the UK without needing an employer to sponsor them, vaguely in the mould of the dearly departed Highly Skilled Migrants Programme. It is h ...

In the States, they’re known as “Dreamers”. Children and young people who grow up perfectly integrated, only to find out that — through no fault of their own — they’re actually unauthorised migrants. Here in the UK, ...

Families who can’t afford British citizenship for their children can now get it for free. A new “citizenship fee waiver for individuals under 18” policy was published today. It allows under-18s to apply to have the £1,012 fee on app ...

Campaigners are pursuing compensation for EU citizens wrongly found to be unlawfully resident for lack of private health insurance. The CSI Justice campaign, launched by lobby group the3million, follows the recent Court of Justice ruling that EU natio ...

The Home Office has published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 17). It is largely focused on changes to the asylum system following the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the agreement with Rwanda to export refu ...

Newly released government documents justifying the refugees-to-Rwanda policy will be independently scrutinised, the immigration inspector has announced. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) is inviting tenders for a count ...

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 hit the statute books yesterday. The Home Office says that the Act “puts into law that those who arrive illegally in the UK – who could have claimed asylum in another safe country – can be considered as â ...

There should be a higher minimum wage just for social care workers rather than looser visa rules, the Migration Advisory Committee has recommended. Releasing a new MAC report on the impact of Brexit on adult social care, chair Brian Bell said: We main ...

This decision forms the next episode in the saga of cases arising from the Test of English for International Communication (“TOEIC”) certificates obtained from test centres in the United Kingdom administering tests set by the Educational T ...

The Home Office has been ordered to make a decision in principle on an Afghan judge’s visa before making him come out of hiding to lodge a formal application. The case is R (JZ) v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affa ...

The Nationality and Borders Bill returns to Parliament today. The House of Lords is being presented with the Bill for a second time after MPs voted to remove all its previous attempts to drastically water down the legislation; typically the unelected ...

The Home Office is writing two special visa schemes for Ukrainians into the Immigration Rules and adding a third for people already here. Statement of changes HC 1220 codifies the existing Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme (described ...

An immigration lawyer has settled a defamation case against the Sun after being monstered for her work with detained asylum seekers. The newspaper had accused Uma Devi Rajasundram of Milestone Solicitors of “shamelessly touting a price list̶ ...

The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner is changing. For one thing, there will soon be no office — or at least, not a physical one. The OISC is ditching its London headquarters and going fully remote, as well as regional. From 1 Apri ...

The government has published 205 pages worth of changes to the Immigration Rules. The changes are being phased in over the next few months, starting on 6 April 2022. Highlights include: Children who live in the UK for seven years can get immigration p ...

Closing the Investor visa route to new applicants with immediate effect was necessary, the Home Secretary said this week. If potential applicants had been given a decent period of notice, it might have attracted a last-minute flood of undesirables who ...

The President of the First-tier Tribunal has put out new guidance on witnesses dialling in to give evidence from abroad. It is decidedly negative, stressing the need to get consent — via the Foreign Office, in a prescribed manner — from th ...

The Investor visa route has been closed to all new applicants with “immediate effect”, the Home Office announced this afternoon, citing “security concerns” and “wider corruption”. This follows multiple media reports ...

The Home Office has suspended its policy of forcing migrants who successfully apply for public funds to wait longer for settlement. In response to a parliamentary question, migration minister Kevin Foster said on 10 February: We are currently reviewin ...

I can do no better than adopt Tom Royston’s summary of R (DK) v Revenue and Customs [2022] EWCA Civ 120: in an important decision about the rights of refugees to financial support for children, the Court of Appeal in England and Wales has agreed ...

Regular readers will remember the problems caused by Comprehensive Sickness Insurance, or CSI. Essentially, certain EU citizens in the UK pre-Brexit were expected to have private health insurance. If they didn’t, it can still cause them legal pr ...

The Upper Tribunal has put out a country guidance ruling on the Iranian government’s monitoring of dissidents on Facebook. Previous case law on the general human rights situation in Iran continues to hold good, but the new decision makes additio ...

The Home Secretary does have the legal power to cancel someone’s indefinite leave to remain after all, the Court of Appeal has held. The decision in R (C1) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rev1) [2022] EWCA Civ 30 reverses the tenta ...

One of the Home Secretary’s more startling powers is to take people’s British citizenship away where they acquired it by fraud or it is “conducive to the public good”. In the latter case, losing citizenship often amounts to exi ...

The UK government’s attempt to strip a British-Pakistani woman of her citizenship without telling her was unlawful, a split Court of Appeal has confirmed. Lord Justice Baker and Lady Justice Whipple held that the regulation allowing notice of ci ...

Social care workers can get Skilled Worker visas from 15 February 2022. The change was first announced on Christmas Eve and has now been confirmed in a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 1019), published yesterday. Employers (but not pr ...

There is a lot going on in immigration law at the moment and we are looking to recruit more specialist contributors to Free Movement. If you can write fluently, you are interested in being read by a wide audience and you are fascinated by immigrat ...

Employers who want to avoid the possibility of a fine for hiring an unauthorised migrant are well advised to carry out right to work checks. Such checks are not mandatory, but where companies do carry them out, the Home Office advises that “all ...

Fast-track age assessments for newly arrived asylum seekers were unlawful, the High Court has found. The case is R (MA & Anor) v Coventry City Council & Anor [2022] EWHC 98 (Admin). Doughty Street Chambers has a detailed summary and Diane Tayl ...