Author: Sonia Lenegan

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Sonia Lenegan

Sonia Lenegan is an experienced immigration, asylum and public law solicitor. She has been practising for over ten years and was previously legal director at the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association and legal and policy director at Rainbow Migration. Sonia is the Editor of Free Movement.

September brought us a new Home Secretary who immediately made some inaccurate comments about “last minute” legal challenges to removal and the modern slavery identification system, so Sonia looked at those in this month’s podcast. Sonia also covered the final act of the previous Home Secretary, which was the closure...

8th October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

A gay man from India has successfully challenged a decision by the Home Secretary to certify his human rights claim, meaning that he was unable to appeal the refusal. He will now be able to appeal the refusal of his human rights claim to the tribunal. This is a Scottish...

3rd October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has won a deportation appeal in the Court of Appeal, overturning a 70 year old woman’s successful appeal against a refusal to revoke her 23 year old deportation order. Success was only on a narrow point though and the matter has been returned to the same tribunal...

2nd October 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Where multiple decisions have been made in a case, each attracting the right of appeal, care must be taken to ensure that the correct procedural steps are taken, otherwise the tribunal may lack jurisdiction. This position has been set out in a decision of the Upper Tribunal in allowing an...

30th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has claimed (as have many of the last several of them) that the modern slavery identification process is “being misused” and has used this as a reason to carry out an “urgent review” of modern slavery laws. Assertions of misuse are incorrect. In reality, the opposite is...

29th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has concluded that a person in the UK on a Health Care Worker visa but encountered working at a restaurant was not undertaking supplementary employment and so his leave was lawfully cancelled. The case is R (Hridoy) v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2024-LON-002819. The...

24th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Last week the Home Secretary expressed outrage at “vexatious, last minute claims” made by people seeking to prevent their removal to France. She is hardly the first Home Secretary to do so. These statements do not reflect the reality of the process, which has been designed by the Home Office...

23rd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

Appendix Family Reunion (Sponsors with Protection) was closed to new applications on 4 September 2025. This does not mean that refugees can no longer bring their family members to the UK, but it does make it much more difficult. Below I take a look at some of the options and...

22nd September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The modern slavery statutory guidance has been amended yesterday, following a grant of interim relief temporarily halting one man’s removal to France this week. Background The Home Office’s attempts to return people to France under the new treaty this week can at best be described as “shambolic”. This was entirely...

18th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has allowed a judicial review brought by a Palestinian man after a nightmare scenario where the Home Office withdrew the refusal of his asylum claim the day before his appeal hearing, indicating that refugee status would be granted, only to later to resile from that position following...

17th September 2025
BY Sonia Lenegan
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