I’ve been following with some interest the establishment of the snappily-entitled Office of the Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency (OCIUKBA to its friends). Like many initiatives to establish supposedly greater accountability for the Home Office, there has been some scepticism about this new institution. The early signs are...
I’m sorry to harp on about this and will return to some substantive legal blogging next week (there’s been a fairly lengthy change to the rules that I haven’t even looked at yet, for starters). I can’t help noticing that UKBA have rather changed their tune, and certainly their tone,...
The media coverage on this story has been interesting. The Telegraph is running a short story that is actually quite sympathetic to employers who break the law. Many seem to be revelling in the fact that Baroness Scotland helped to pass the law she may or may not have broken....
Since 2005, refugees have been granted five years of limited leave, at the end of which they are eligible to apply for settlement, or ILR. Before 2005, they were granted settlement straight away, on the grounds that this policy promoted integration. One of the consequences of this change is that...
In the recent case of AK (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] EWCA Civ 941 the Court of Appeal held that an immigration judge had committed an error of law in failing to adjourn a hearing when the appellant had been ditched by his legal representative...
I’ve heard a couple of reports of dissent in different ranks this week. Firstly, I’ve heard from two separate sources that UKBA is imposing a ‘success’ rate of 85% on Home Office Presenting Officers, the officials who represent UKBA in the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. By success I mean getting...
I’ve created a new category on the visa age to keep track of the different posts I’ve written on this subject over the last couple of years. The Home Office have provided further reasons for rejecting the research that found that increasing the spouse visa age would be harmful to...
Courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, I can exclusively report (I’ve never written that before!) that the Home Office has finally released the full research report it commissioned into the issue of forced marriages and the spouse visa age. I have previously posted on the research summary that had...
