Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #85

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! 

Personally I feel that Grant Shapps’ record as the best Home Secretary we have had in the past 15+ years remains intact. What a legacy though – in her last week in the job, Yvette Cooper closed the refugee family reunion route. A huge well done and thank you to all the lawyers who worked so hard last week to get as many family reunion applications submitted as possible. Thoughts are with those people still waiting for a decision on their asylum claim, who now face an uncertain future with their family.

As for our new Home Secretary, when she was Justice Secretary Mahmood has had little to say about the ongoing attack on immigration judges by Tory politicians and the right wing press which has been ongoing since at least the beginning of the year (and on that topic – do read this report if you haven’t already). Her appointment was enthusiastically welcomed by Maurice Glasman. Straight out of the gates it has been reported that the new Home Secretary wants to expand the use of military barracks type accommodation to reduce the number of people living in hotels. 

As she should already be aware from her previous role, as long as there are not enough legal aid lawyers and the Home Office continues to make poor decisions that need to be appealed, the need for asylum accommodation will be prolonged. Military barracks are completely unsuitable for many, if not most, people, and that combined with the Home Office’s poor record of identifying those suitable to go into the sites is a recipe for disaster.

On Free Movement last week, I republished our guide to making refugee family reunion applications along with a warning about the impending closure and it was good to see this page getting a lot of views in that short period of time. Hopefully it helped with getting some applications in on time. 

I also updated and republished our exceptional circumstances Appendix FM post – as this will be how most refugees will bring in family members for now, increasing the hurdles for submitting an application and doubling the amount of time they must wait before being able to settle in the UK. We also know from the white paper that the government was already unhappy with the number of family applications using exceptional circumstances and they have indicated a “new family policy” is coming which will inevitably seek to make life more difficult again.

Also on the blog – the latest podcast is out! I wrote up the latest instalment of the Epping hotel case and we also published this useful explainer on where we are with the various shortage role lists. For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

We escaped war and torture but now we feel unsafe in Britain – Liverpool Echo, 7 September

Stop the Inhumanity at Europe’s Borders! Manifesto – United Against Inhumanity, August

Home Office Eyes More Restrictions On International Student Visas – PoliticsHome, 2 September

London Councils To Be Hit Hardest By Closure Of Social Care Visa – PoliticsHome, 4 September

Call for urgent Windrush payouts as survivors say Home Office ‘waiting for us to die’ – The Guardian, 5 September

Nan’s Not Bankrupting Britain (But Politicians Might Be) – Bearly Politics, 6 September

Keir Starmer declined to back Glasgow refugee homelessness plea – The Herald, 6 September

It’s official – Keir Starmer’s “island of strangers” speech has backfired – New Statesman, 5 September

Jobs advertised for Campsfield House due to ‘open soon’ – Oxford Mail, 3 September

Town and gown: The role of universities in city economies – Centre for Cities, 3 September

Government scraps ‘Britain is bad’ campaign to scare away Albanian migrants – The i Paper, 4 September