Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #60

 Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

Committee stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill continued last week, and the two amendments that had been put forward to reverse the recent changes to the good character guidance were debated on Thursday. Pete Wishart MP put it well when he said “I think we are all still reeling a little bit, thinking about what this involves and what is at stake.” Nothing new was added by the responsible Minister, and it was pointed out that she failed to address concerns raised by UNHCR (from paragraph 68 of their legal observations on the Bill), which had been explicitly referred to in the debate.  

You have probably seen some of the recent reports of European tourists being detained at the US border. None of them should have been detained, let alone for such lengthy periods of time, however it should serve as a real wake up call of the importance of being aware of the restrictions on visitor/tourist visas and the potentially very serious consequences of a breach. At least some of the cases I have seen seem to have involved people actually intending to carry out some form of work, which is not permitted under the terms of the visa they sought to enter on. Alex Piletska covered this issue for us in great form recently and I said at the time that the principles in there would apply to other countries as well.

Quite bizarrely, given their extensive coverage of these cases, the Guardian then published an article recommending that people who are backpacking work in exchange for accommodation, without flagging up any of the risks if this is done without the correct visa.

On Free Movement, we had a new statement of changes on Wednesday and the 0.4% of asylum claims that are from Trinidad & Tobago have apparently “added significantly to operational pressures at the border and resulted in frontline resource being diverted from other operational priorities” to the point where it was necessary to place them on the visa national list with immediate effect. 

The latest quarterly tribunal statistics were also released last week and the asylum appeal backlog continues to soar, but I think we also need to start paying attention to the fact that we have not had any data on Upper Tribunal appeals since 2021/22. Both HMCTS and the Home Office are withholding increasing amounts of data based on “database migration” that show no signs of ever actually being completed. And when these projects are completed, will the missing data gaps be filled in?

We also had some case write ups, including on a successful challenge to refusal of compensation under the Windrush scheme. And Chris Benn has updated his post on absences from the UK and the EU Settlement Scheme – essential reading for everyone with leave in this route or working on these cases. 

For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on. 

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

Why denying citizenship to refugees matters so much, Colin’s Substack, 14 March

‘I can’t believe I had to prove I’m British’ – BBC News, 13 March

Labour’s Immigration Policy – London Review of Books, 20 March

‘I’m proud of being a refugee who came to the UK’ – BBC News, 12 March

New estimate ‘shows scale of exploitation on Wild West care visa route’ – Independent, 12 March

How not to be deported: India’s nurses seeking work abroad learn how to migrate safely – The Guardian, 12 March

Flawed UK visa scheme led to ‘horrific’ care worker abuse, says watchdog – The Observer, 16 March

Home Office announces new immigration policy changes – NHS Employers, 13 March

Exploited, recognised as a slavery victim, now facing deportation: one seafarer’s UK ordeal – The Guardian, 15 March

Citizenship: A race to the bottom? – IPPR, 10 March

IMA Welcomes Amendments to Proposed Immigration Legislation – Independent Monitoring Authority, 11 March

Foreign criminals to face Home Office tagging – BBC News, 14 March

Reflections on “Supply Chain Justice: The Logistics of Border Control” – AVID, 11 March