The latest quarterly immigration statistics were published today. Most of the media focus is on net migration and the Office of National Statistics ONS report. Net migration turned out to be around 600,000 rather than the 700,000 or more that some had predicted. Here, though, we’re going to focus on...
Some big news at Free Movement. Two bits of big news, in fact. New Editor Firstly, I am delighted to announce that Sonia Lenegan is joining Free Movement as the new Editor in August. She will be replacing me, although I’ll still be lurking in the background and contributing from...
This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin’s suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, we run through a load of cases and end by...
The immigration rules are full of harsh general rules accompanied by potential exceptions. These exceptions require a subjective judgment to be made and they make the rules complex. They also manufacture risk for applicants, making the outcome of immigration applications hard to predict. Unpredictability, combined with the high financial and...
For this month’s roundup podcast, Sonia and I manage to rattle through a huge volume of updates in a mere 36 minutes. We cover a load of cases, some important asylum policy updates and then several developments in immigration law as well. We’re sorry it is a little later than...
We live in what some have called ‘multi-status Britain’, a country in which discrimination is baked into a social, economic and racial hierarchy based on different forms of legal status. With British citizenship, other forms of British nationality, indefinite leave to remain, permanent residence, the five year route to settlement,...
A new report by the international aid spending watchdog has revealed that the Home Office spent one third of the UK’s international aid budget on domestic asylum costs, leading to severe cuts to genuine international aid programmes. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) found that the permission given by...
The short answer is that we do not know. But it is possible to make some informed guesses. In this post I try to do just that, based on a Twitter thread from a few days ago and some feedback from that. Page contentsEvidence on refugee decision-makingDeterrence does not workIs the...
