Barred from working and mainstream benefits, for many in the asylum system their only option for money and shelter is by requesting support from the Home Office. A year into the pandemic, the asylum support system has seen significant changes. This article tries to outline just a few of the...
The High Court in SM v Lord Chancellor [2021] EWHC 418 (Admin) has held that free legal advice must be made available to immigration detainees held in prisons, bringing access to lawyers into line with the legal advice scheme operating in immigration removal centres (“IRCs”). In a significant loss for...
The Upper Tribunal in QC (verification of documents; Mibanga duty) China [2021] UKUT 33 (IAC) has given useful guidance on how to approach documentary evidence submitted by asylum appellants. The tribunal has also clarified the circumstances in which Home Office must make enquiries to verify an appellant’s documentary evidence before...
How serious must a person’s “extremism” be to justify exclusion from the Refugee Convention? Three years ago, the Court of Appeal in Youssef & N2 v Secretary of State for the Home Department lowered the bar for exclusion from the Convention’s protection by disqualifying an asylum seeker for “general” promotion of...
In the case of Mahboubian v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 3289 (Admin), the High Court decided that the Home Office couldn’t be held responsible for an eight-month delay in finding immigration bail accommodation for a high-risk offender. The court instead found that pandemic disruption was...
In Ali v Home Office EW Misc 27 (CC) [2020], the County Court robustly dismissed a false imprisonment claim brought by an Afghan refugee who was detained for 98 days under the Detained Fast Track process in 2015. County Court cases are rarely reported and so one might expect something...
In B & C v Switzerland (application no. 43987/16 and 889/19) the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously held that the deportation of asylum seekers to countries where they risk persecution for their sexual orientation would violate the Article 3 prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment under...
Right to Rent checks can be carried out online and in real time from 25 November 2020 onwards. Under the new scheme, landlords will be able to conduct checks on whether prospective tenants are permitted to rent using a Home Office webpage (not yet live). For now, the online checking...
The Home Office has released new interim guidance on the immigration bail accommodation system. The 15-page document introduces a couple of minor changes to address the High Court’s damning criticism of the department’s bail accommodation policies in Humnyntskyi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 1912 Admin,...
