Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #78

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! I have exceptionally gone a little longer than usual this week, for obvious reasons. 

Last week many people received a message from the Ministry of Defence that immediately struck them with terror. It is still difficult to contemplate the extent and implications of what has happened, following the lifting of a super-injunction allowing reporting on an incredibly serious data breach by the Ministry of Defence. The data leaked contained details of tens of thousands of Afghans who had applied to be resettled to the UK because of the risk they faced from the Taliban. The existence of a third, secret, Afghan resettlement scheme to help some of those affected by the breach was both announced and closed the same day.

A self-checking tool has been set up so that people can try to find out if their data was leaked, although concerns have been raised about the limitations of the checker. Everything appears to have been done in English only. 

There has been a lot of excellent reporting on this over the past week, far too much to include in here but I particularly recommend this piece which brings many of the various threads together. I have added several more pieces to the end of the “what we’re reading” section below

I am aware that the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office had concerns about litigation surrounding the Afghan resettlement schemes, so I don’t think it is too far fetched to say that the desire to keep lawyers away from all of this may have played a role in the government’s desire to maintain secrecy. All you need to is look at, for example the litigation around the Triples cases, let alone the individual challenges to resettlement decisions and the incentive to keep lawyers out of this until the scheme was closed was clearly there.

Given the poor decision making that we have seen, it seems inevitable that people have been unlawfully excluded from the now closed secret resettlement scheme. But with no one aware of the need to advocate for them, challenges would have been almost impossible, although judgment 4 does refer to a judicial review brought by some of those affected by the breach. There has already been coverage of at least one decision to refuse resettlement which was overturned after lawyers started asking questions about the breach.

Precise numbers of those brought to the UK because of the data leak are unclear. Much of last week’s reporting conflated the secret scheme with Afghan resettlement as a whole, which was not particularly helpful. The variety of numbers I have seen mentioned in reporting is truly wild. Apparently future statistics releases will provide a proper breakdown between the different schemes.

In the meantime, all of this should be considered within the wider context of how the UK is treating Afghans, by refusing claims in increasingly high numbers and by closing the other two Afghan resettlement schemes without advance notice. On Friday the Home Office removed Afghan children from the scope of their streamlined asylum processing for children, meaning that it will take longer and be more difficult for those children to get a decision on their claims.

On Free Movement, I asked Alex Piletska to take a look at the situation with application forms for various ten year settlement routes because, as pointed out a couple of times in the post, the situation with these forms really is a hot mess. The most important takeaway (apart from the need for the Home Office to sort all of this out) is that people should be given the opportunity to submit the correct form where errors have been made, so rejection should not happen unless you ignore the Home Office.

Elsewhere on the blog, we had an explainer of the available options where before an extension of leave as a skilled worker needs to be applied for but the certificate of sponsorship allocation has not yet come through. There was also this important reported Upper Tribunal case on evidential flexibility and administrative reviews, as well as this interesting unreported decision on some fairly dodgy behaviour by the Home Office involving a human rights claim in a deportation case.

We also updated the following online courses for members: Refugee Family Reunion and Asylum in a Global Context (both with thanks to Daniel Rourke). For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

‘Restoring Control Over the Immigration System’: The Future of Sponsorship – ILPA blog, 16 July

SRA shuts down Labour councillor’s law firm – Law Gazette, 14 July

Ukrainians may be allowed stay in Ireland once directive expires – Irish Examiner, 16 July

Escalating unrest in Syria lays bare new regime’s momentous challenges – The Guardian, 19 July

UK government faces legal action over not evacuating critically ill children from Gaza – The Guardian, 20 July

Leaked document shows boat slashing failed to stop migrants reaching UK – The Guardian, 20 July

Border Force chief who ‘suggested game of Naked Attraction’ with colleagues was able to leave civil service with unblemished record – The Guardian, 19 July

Legal aid fees consultation: what’s changing? – Law Gazette, 18 July

Illegal work crackdown: London businesses fined £1m a month as latest raids reveal workers in UK for 16 years – The Standard, 16 July

Bristol councillor speaks out against ‘cruel immigration raids’ and says he’s ‘had enough’ – Bristol Live, 18 July

Data Protection risks to life: Should more be done – Mishcon de Reya, 16 July

My two years in secret court: How UK governments hid a national scandal – Goodall and Good Luck, 15 July

Was MoD acting in the interests of Afghans on leaked list – or covering its own back? – The Observer, 16 July

What the Afghan ‘super-injunction’ tells us about the UK – Financial Times (£), 16 July

Afghan data breach is the long shadow of a botched evacuation – Institute for Government, 16 July

Crucial MoD email safety check was scrapped before Afghan data leak – The i Paper, 17 July