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 Senior President of Tribunals has published his 2023 annual report which includes updates from the Immigration and Asylum Chambers of both the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal. Apart from reporting on the extensive preparation work that has been required for both the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the...

5th January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 were brought into force) by the end of 2023. Yesterday he claimed that this goal had been achieved, despite the government’s statistics...

3rd January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Upper Tribunal has held that it is lawful for the Home Secretary to deprive a person of their British citizenship without notice, in this case because of a concern that the second nationality would be renounced. Renunciation would have meant that deprivation of British citizenship would be at risk...

22nd December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

In Dani (non-removal human rights submissions) Albania [2023] UKUT 293 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has said that an application made under the EU settlement scheme does not in itself amount to a human rights claim. This is yet another case where people trying to access their rights under the EU...

21st December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The High Court has issued a damning interim relief decision with a laundry list of Home Office failures in a case challenging the detention of a potential victim of trafficking with mental health issues and several criminal convictions. The case is R (ER) v Secretary of State for the Home...

21st December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

A new version of the Home Office caseworker guidance “Withdrawing asylum claims” has been published, halving the amount of time people are given to explain reasons for missing an interview as well as setting out some additional steps for those who miss an interview. You can see a comparison of...

21st December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

Reunite Families UK, a lived experience organisation, have published a timely new report looking at the negative mental health impact of family separation caused by the immigration rules, particularly the minimum income requirement. The research looks at the current position, which is shortly to become considerably worse when the increase...

20th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The two district councils and local resident who brought a judicial review challenging the use of decommissioned Ministry of Defence sites at Wethersfield and Scampton to accommodate men seeking asylum have been unsuccessful in the High Court. The case is R (Clarke-Holland) v Secretary State for the Home Department &...

20th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Independent Monitoring Boards have published their National Annual Report for 2022 on the immigration detention estate and concerns have been raised in relation to several areas, many of which will be familiar to anyone working in this area. People are still being detained for too long, including one person...

19th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

Our November roundup is here, where Colin and I cover the latest asylum and trafficking statistics, changes to the way late applications to the EU settlement scheme are treated, questions the Solicitors Regulation Authority still hasn’t answered, a couple of articles on the situation for Palestinians as well as quite...

14th December 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan
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