Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #30

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

For the third week in a row a person has died trying to cross the Channel to get to the UK. 23 people have lost their lives attempting that journey and there is a lot of this year left. Still nothing from the new government on safe route alternatives, the Home Secretary impressively managing to dodge questions on this last week.

Today is Home Office questions in the House of Commons and there do not appear to be any questions on safe routes. There are, however, a couple on what is being done to clear the asylum backlog. These questions follow from the new regulations that were made last week in order to allow grants of leave to be made and to get cases moving again. A lot went wrong in last year’s backlog clearance exercise, and there is no excuse for those errors to be repeated. 

Reminder: Appendix FM application fees went up last week.

On Free Movement, we have updated our advanced course on international surrogacy – immigration and nationality law issues. Alex Piletska’s write up of a case where the High Court found that the passport office was prevented from refusing a British passport to a person who may not actually be British proved very popular.

We also published a post looking at a recent and substantial increase in the Home Office carrying out multiple asylum interviews for individual cases. There was also a fairly rare successful challenge to an asylum accommodation move.

For everything else on the blog and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

Labour’s inbox: Home Office culture and approach – Colin’s Substack, 25 July

Courts place UK’s post-Brexit scheme for EU citizens at risk, experts warn – The Guardian, 25 July

Research Briefing: The immigration rules – House of Commons Library, 24 July

Yvette Cooper under pressure to airlift Tamil asylum seekers to UK – The Guardian, 26 July

Woman travels UK by bus pass for refugee reunions – BBC News, 28 July

Asylum hotel company ‘paid £16,000,000 to apparent offshore firm’ – Metro, 23 July

Bibby Stockholm migrant barge to be closed – BBC News, 23 July

Officer from Italy forced to quit UK police due to post-Brexit barriers – The Guardian, 22 July