Author Archive

The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) has updated its guidance on exceptions to open justice. Guidance Note 2022 No 2: Anonymity Orders and Hearings in Private runs to 53 paragraphs, twice the length of its 2013 predecessor, issued under ...

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 ...

The Inner House of the Court of Session has rejected an appeal by HM Revenue and Customs against a ruling that newly recognised refugees are entitled to backdated child tax credit. The case is HMRC v Adnan [2022] CSIH 2. Mr and Mrs Adnan first applied ...

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 ...

What does it mean to be ‘westernised’? It is striking that a term that is used so frequently in this jurisdiction has never been more closely defined. I would suggest that this is because, like obscene material, it is because we ‘know it when we ...

The High Court has thrown out a challenge arguing that the free legal advice given to migrants in detention centres is rubbish. Mr Justice Calver held that statistical evidence that many legal aid firms provide a poor service was unreliable and that & ...

Airport “eGates” where people can scan their own passport may make it harder for border officers to catch human trafficking, inspectors have warned. A review of eGates by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration highlight ...

The Home Office has conceded that EU citizens being lined up for deportation retain full residence rights in the meantime. This is so long as they have applied to stay in the UK under the EU Settlement Scheme and are protected by the Brexit Withdrawal ...

At least 464 people have been stripped of their British citizenship since the law allowing it was relaxed 15 years ago, Free Movement analysis shows. Home Office figures record 175 people being deprived of their citizenship on national security ground ...

Just over a year ago, the Home Office introduced new rules on deeming asylum claims “inadmissible” — rejected out of hand, without consideration on the merits. At the time, Colin pointed out that without agreements on sending people back to ...

The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme formally began yesterday. The definition of resettlement is elastic: for now, the scheme is only for people “already evacuated and in the UK”. New arrivals are not yet being accepted. Afghan resettle ...

The Court of Appeal has quashed the convictions of three asylum seekers jailed for between two and six years for assisting unlawful immigration after piloting small boats across the English Channel. The case is Bani v The Crown [2021] EWCA Crim 1958. ...

Welcome to episode 95 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we cover some developments on EU citizens’ rights, several cases on immigration appeals, the latest work visa statistics, and then a few court and tribunal judgments ...

The Home Office has issued new guidance to immigration enforcement officers, called simply Obstruction. This refers to the criminal offence of obstructing an immigration officer in section 26(1)(g) of the Immigration Act 1971, which can see activists ...

Two victims of the Windrush scandal have won a High Court challenge arguing for citizenship law to be applied more leniently in special cases like theirs. Mr Justice Bourne held today that a seemingly inflexible provision of British nationality law re ...

The government has published its proposals for changing the Human Rights Act 1998. Not all the consultation questions will be of professional interest to immigration lawyers — for instance, there are sections on free speech and trial by jury  ...

The Independent Human Rights Act Review and a consultation on changes to the Human Rights Act 1998 are both due out today. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has written a preview for the Times, which Joshua Rozenberg has subjected to paragraph-by-paragr ...

The Home Office has knocked back campaigners arguing for a relaxation of the near-total ban on asylum seekers working while they wait for a decision on their claim. The Lift the Ban coalition had produced evidence showing that allowing destitute peopl ...

The Nationality and Borders Bill 2021 has passed its third reading in the House of Commons and now goes to the House of Lords on 5 January. The Lords will very likely vote to remove some of the more egregious provisions, and it is always possible that ...

A 38-year-old man born in the UK without British citizenship cannot be deported to a country he has never even been to, the Upper Tribunal has decided. The case is Akinyemi v Secretary of State for the Home Department (unreported, DA/00574/2014). Rem ...

The Supreme Court has overturned last year’s ruling that EU citizens with pre-settled status should be able to claim Universal Credit without having to jump through hoops. The case is Fratila and another v Secretary of State for Work and Pension ...

The immigration inspector has welcomed an increase in free appointments at visa centres in the UK following a report showing that they have been consistently unavailable. David Neal found that Home Office attempts to keep appointments free despite out ...

Record numbers of people have been getting their hands on a Global Talent visa in recent months. Almost 700 were issued in the third quarter of 2021 alone, excluding dependants — more than the annual total in many previous years. Brexit can skew ...

Over 17,000 people applied for asylum in the UK between July and September, the highest quarterly total since 2003, new Home Office figures show. Year on year, there has been an 11% rise in applications to 44,000 in the 12 months to the end of Septemb ...

Only five people who arrived in the UK by small boat have been sent back to a European country so far this year, according to the Home Office. The figure comes from junior minister Tom Pursglove, who told MPs on the Home Affairs committee that, thanks ...

Soul-searching in a large bureaucracy often manifests in well-meaning paperwork. So it is that the Home Office has published an ethical decision-making model. The document is intended to help staff grappling with difficult moral choices in the course ...

Some important points on inconsistency and credibility in trafficking cases from David Lock QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge: The expert evidence in this case from Mr Steve Harvey, who has long experience in the police and in Europol in traffi ...

Immigration Enforcement has been given the power to decide whether or not someone is a victim of human trafficking. An update to the Modern Slavery guidance, published on 8 November, includes an “Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority” ...

The Court of Appeal has added a rider to last month’s decision in MY (Pakistan). On 15 October, the court held that the Home Office can refuse to engage with human rights claims bolted on to normal immigration applications, which is bad news for ...

The next round of Shamima Begum’s appeal against losing her British citizenship will take place in November 2022. Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid made an order depriving Ms Begum of her British citizenship in February 2019. An appeal arguing tha ...

The latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 803) allows pork butchers to come into the UK as Seasonal Workers for up to six months. It came into force at 4pm on 1 November 2021. The government announced last month that 800 temporary v ...

People being persecuted on account of their sexual orientation can seek asylum in the UK, but face having to convince the Home Office that they are in fact lesbian, gay or bisexual. While asylum seekers are no longer quizzed about Oscar Wilde, more su ...

In Re Ní Chuinneagain [2021] NIQB 79 the High Court in Northern Ireland has thrown out a challenge to automatic British citizenship for people who reject it. The claimant is from Belfast and regards herself as 100% Irish, from passport to first langu ...

Some young people born or brought up in the UK without immigration status can now apply for settlement after five years rather than ten. The change in policy comes in a new and very welcome Home Office concession, published yesterday. What follows is ...