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 Court of Appeal has, for the third time this year, had to intervene where the Upper Tribunal has failed to do so, in a case involving poor conduct on the part of the First-tier Tribunal. This case is Hima v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...

1st July 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has held that the decision made by Suella Braverman not to implement recommendations made in Wendy Williams’ review into the Windrush scandal was unlawful. The recommendations specifically related to the creation of a Migrants’ Commissioner role and the review of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and...

26th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In this podcast Sonia discusses Kalayaan’s new report “12 years of modern slavery” with Avril Sharp, immigration lawyer and policy officer. The report looks at the history of the overseas domestic worker visa, and the harmful changes that have made. They also discuss the impact of the Nationality and Borders...

24th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Here is your May round up of Free Movement. In this episode Colin and Sonia look at the latest immigration, asylum and trafficking statistics, including discussion of the fee waiver backlog. They also cover the latest on “safe and legal” routes for those in Afghanistan and Gaza. Sonia nerds it...

14th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has said that it was not unlawful that a Kenyan refugee who had been trafficked to the UK as a domestic worker had to wait from August 2019 to April 2023 for a decision on her trafficking claim. The court also said that the delays within the...

13th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Two claimants, the charity Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London “RAMFEL” and Ms Adjei, have succeeded in a judicial review where it was held that the Home Secretary’s failure to provide people on section 3C leave with digital evidence of their status was unlawful. The case is R...

11th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In the latest and last judgment in some fairly complex litigation around the use of hotels to accommodation and other issues, the High Court seems to have finally got to a point with Kent County Council where they accept that they cannot get around the duty to find a placement...

10th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal alleging procedural unfairness in a First-tier Tribunal hearing where the judge asked a “significant” number of questions. The court also gave a brief reminder of the importance of counsel raising any issues with judicial conduct during the appeal itself. The case is...

7th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Shortly after it received Royal Assent last year, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 was described as “utterly unworkable and extortionately expensive”, “deeply unethical” and “a traffickers’ charter”. Despite those comments by the shadow Immigration Minister, Labour has not committed to repealing the Illegal Migration Act. However I am hopefully not...

5th June 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small...

31st May 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan
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