Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #50 

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

It may be a brand new year but the same unresolved issues from 2024 continue to roll on. The first is of course eVisas, and we are now past the point where any remaining biometric residence permits have expired. The latest update is that no equality or data protection impact assessments have been published for the wider roll out of the scheme, with the Home Office apparently continuing to rely on pre-existing impact assessments. Nationality and Borders Act impact assessment fans will no doubt be flinching at the Home Office’s response – that updated impact assessments will follow “in due course”.

The difficulties of using section 3C leave in the hostile environment will inevitably continue to make news during 2025 and not only because of eVisas. We are already seeing news stories highlighting the difficulty a visible leave expiry date is causing for Ukrainians, despite the extension scheme that will allow them to stay in the UK for longer.

There were further deaths in the Channel right at the end of last year as three people died and many others were rescued. Refugee Council published a new report recommending improvements in search and rescue and a focus on saving lives, as well the expansion of safe and legal routes to the UK including piloting a refugee visa scheme. Meanwhile the government is proposing a social media ban on suspected people smugglers, among other measures in the new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which we will see at some point this year.

On the blog, we have a half price sale on annual individual and small group memberships running until 14 January, meaning that annual individual membership is now down to £120 plus VAT.

Since the last newsletter, Colin has written up his review of 2024, looking at both the wider immigration and asylum system as well as what was going at Free Movement including our top ten posts of the year. We published this extremely useful and comprehensive briefing on how to  obtain leave to remain for survivors of trafficking as well as this write up of recent experiences with Migrant Help.

Brian Dikoff of Migrants Organise wrote up the new Presidential Guidance on litigation friends in the immigration tribunals. We also had a few case write ups including one from the Court of Appeal on rejection of an EUSS application and another from them on a distressing case of two young children separated from their parents during a Channel crossing. A decision by the Upper Tribunal said that leave obtained by deception does not count as continuous lawful residence.

For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere in the past couple of weeks, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

New project launches in London to help migrants ‘securely’ report abuse – The Standard, 18 December  

The work of the Home Office – Oral evidence – Home Affairs Committee, 17 December  

UK visa income test ‘cruel’ barrier to family reunions, says charity – The Guardian, 22 December  

Judicial Review dismissed – Decision of Swindon Magistrates’ Court upheld to allow prosecution of Clearsprings Ready Homes for housing standards breach in asylum support accommodation – Garden Court Chambers, 2 January

How ‘insane’ Home Office errors helped create a new asylum-seeker homeless problem – The i paper, 22 December

At least 270 people have died in UK awaiting asylum application decisions since 2015, figures show – Sky News, 23 December  

‘They thought they were going to die’: the asylum seekers who survived rioters trying to burn down their accommodation – The Guardian, 29 December  

Mapped: Refugee homelessness on the rise in nearly 100 UK councils – Independent, 31 December  

The nameless dead: scientists hunt for identities of thousands who tried to reach Europe – The Guardian, 2 January