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 Migration Advisory Committee has completed the rapid review of the shortage occupation list that it was commissioned to carry out in late January and has recommended that 21 occupations are included on the new immigration salary list. The government has already announced that a statement of changes will be...

26th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal from Shamima Begum challenging the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s decision that the deprivation of her British citizenship was lawful. I recommend reading Colin’s write up of that SIAC decision. This decision is Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024]...

26th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In the latest case challenging a decision made under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, the High Court has quashed the refusal decision on the basis that it was not supported by the evidence that had been provided in support of the application. The case is R (MA) v Secretary...

23rd February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

We previously covered the High Court’s decision that routine redactions of junior civil servants’ names in judicial review disclosure was unlawful, and the Court of Appeal has now agreed with that in R (IAB and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Secretary of State for Levelling...

21st February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

As trailed previously, a statement of changes has been published today removing the rights of care workers to bring dependants to the UK. What was not mentioned in advance was that this statement of changes would also close the Ukraine Family Scheme with immediate effect (from 3pm 19 February 2024),...

19th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The latest in a rash of recent cases displaying poor behaviour on the part of the Home Office is R (Amena El-Ashkar) v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2022-LON-002069. This is a decision on an application by the Home Secretary to withdraw undertakings that had been provided to...

16th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Having presumably learned from their much criticised mishandling of certain trafficking cases, the government published a statement yesterday stating that they have paused consideration of asylum claims from a certain group. Those affected are people who arrived on or after 1 January 2022 and who received a notice of intent before...

15th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

A new version of the modern slavery statutory guidance was published in January, adding some protections for people who are at risk of being disqualified from trafficking support due to a public order offence. These changes were made following the Home Secretary’s concession of a judicial review challenge to guidance...

9th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Secretary has been told by the Asylum Support Tribunal to re-make the decisions to stop the asylum support for three people who refused to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge. In doing so the tribunal also set out the process that should be followed for any such decisions...

8th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has approved a situation where the Home Secretary failed to comply with appeal directions to the point that the First-tier Tribunal ordered that evidence be excluded, and then in response to that sought to withdraw the decision under challenge. The case is Maleci (Non-admission of late evidence)...

5th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan
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