Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #58

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

Committee stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continues this week. An amendment has been proposed by the SNP’s Pete Wishart (on page 8), which would ensure that illegal entry to the UK is ignored when considering the good character requirement in applications for British citizenship, which would reverse the recent change implemented via guidance.

On the same topic, the Home Affairs Select Committee has written to the Minister for Migration and Citizenship with some excellent key questions on the change. The committee has asked for the reasons the change was made, the circumstances in which a person could still make a successful application, and how the previous ten year ban was applied in practice. A response has been requested by 11 March.

The hearings in the Cranston Inquiry start this morning. The inquiry was set up to investigate the incident on 24 November 2021 when at least 27 people died trying to cross the Channel. The inquiry will be live streamed.

On Free Movement, it was quarterly statistics day on Thursday. The Supreme Court handed down an interesting judgment looking at the implications when a decision to deprive a person of their British citizenship is successfully challenged. Also on citizenship, we looked at a High Court decision which is the first case to look at the new(ish) section 4L of the British Nationality Act 1981 which provides for people to be registered as British in special circumstances.

We also had a write up of a successful challenge to three Home Office refusals to reinstate support for a survivor of trafficking. There was also this case where neither the First-tier nor the Upper Tier Tribunals have covered themselves in glory to date, and so an unimpressed Court of Appeal has sent the case directly to the President of the First-tier Tribunal to consider next steps.

The latest instalment in the Diego Garcia cases is also out, with the High Court dismissing a challenge to the refusal to relocate one man from the island. For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading 

Asylum seeker, 31, scared of being made to leave UK took her own life in Stoke-on-Trent – Stoke-on-Trent Live, 25 February

Record number of children died crossing Channel last year, says UN – The Guardian, 25 February

Labour MPs demand answers over Clearsprings’ mystery offshore payments – OpenDemocracy, 3 March

UK’s seasonal farm worker scheme to be extended for five years – The Guardian, 25 February

Banned from work by an illogical rule, Leeds asylum seekers fight for dignity and hope – Yorkshire Bylines, 1 March

Can the tide turn on the Channel migrant boat crossings? – BBC News, 1 March

Foreign Aid Should Not Be Spent On Migrant Hotels, Says Labour MP – PoliticsHome, 1 March

ANOTHER homeless camp set up after evictions as council accused of ‘moving problem’ – Manchester Evening News, 26 February

Resisting the border spectacle – Border Criminologies, 24 February

NCA investigation leads to conviction of gang who forced migrants to work in cannabis farms – National Crime Agency, 25 February