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.

The latest modern slavery statistics have been published and show that the ‘immigration enforcement competent authority’ had made its lowest percentage of positive conclusive grounds decisions confirming that a person is recognised as a victim of trafficking since it was set up, with a recognition rate of 20.68% for the...

16th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

On Monday the Home Office updated the guidance documents relating to removals to Rwanda and retroactively amended the Rwanda agreement to include the possibility of sending failed asylum seekers there. This was done via a letter from the British High Commissioner in Rwanda to Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary Ministry of Foreign...

15th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In the April roundup Colin and Sonia cover the new Rwanda Act and the process for sending a person to Rwanda, challenges to the use of the inadmissibility process, the government’s response to the increase in arrivals of Vietnamese nationals and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report...

13th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Office is proposing to change the Adults at Risk guidance in a way that will result in more vulnerable people being detained. On 30 April 2024 draft statutory Adults at Risk guidance was published and the Immigration (Guidance on Detention of Vulnerable Persons) Regulations 2024 will bring the...

7th May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Leigh Day, instructed by Asylum Aid, have today sent a pre action letter challenging the lawfulness of certain aspects of the Safety of Rwanda guidance that was published on Monday 29 April 2024. The pre action letter is being shared widely within the immigration law sector (see below) so that...

3rd May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The second part of a challenge to the family reunion rules that exclude child refugees from bringing their family to the UK has been dismissed by the High Court. The case is R (DM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees intervening) [2024]...

2nd May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In Al-Azad v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 407 the Court of Appeal has said that paragraph 322(1A) of the immigration rules (mandatory ground for refusal where false representations are used) applies to an application which has been varied by a later application in which...

1st May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

I have set out below what the legal process is for sending a person to Rwanda following the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which received Royal Assent on 25 April and came into force the same day. I have looked only at the law as it currently...

30th April 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has rejected a claim that Afghan nationals have been unlawfully treated less favourably than Ukrainians when it comes to the requirement to enrol biometrics as part of an entry clearance application. The case is R (AB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA...

29th April 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has overturned a decision by the First-tier Tribunal to allow the appeal of a couple who were trying to rely on their residence rights under EU law in circumstances where their sponsor had lost his EU citizenship. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department...

26th April 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan
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