Free Movement Weekly Newsletter #87

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! 

I had expected to start last week’s newsletter with the news that the first removals to France had taken place, forgetting that – as the BBC rather memorably put it last week “that the Home Office regularly snatches defeat from the jaws of victory thanks to epic levels of dysfunction” (kidding – of course I hadn’t forgotten). The flight on Monday morning left without anyone being removed and an Eritrean man due to be removed on Wednesday succeeded in an interim relief application on Tuesday.

I haven’t seen a written decision from the court, but it appears that a negative reasonable grounds trafficking decision was made during the hearing and the Home Office then confirmed that the decision could not be challenged from France. The High Court ordered a brief stay on removal so that the claimant could ask for reconsideration of the decision.

The Home Secretary announced that she would appeal the decision, but in the meantime, at 8.24pm on Wednesday night the modern slavery statutory guidance was amended to block reconsideration requests from those the Home Office is trying to return to France. On Thursday morning an Indian man was returned to France, followed on Friday by an Eritrean man and an Iranian man. The so-called deterrent effect of the policy has yet to materialise.

 The Home Secretary’s harmful and inaccurate rhetoric about “last minute legal challenges” and the modern slavery system being misused has done nothing to calm an environment where for the second month running NGOs have had to close their offices out of safety fears. I am working on detailed responses to this nonsense, but in the meantime you should read this by Freedom from Torture’s Kolbassia Haoussou.

On Free Movement, I have pulled together various briefings on routes for refugees to use to reunite with their family members following closure of Appendix Family Reunion. We have also updated our explainer on when the child of a British citizen may not be British.

In a new reported decision by the Upper Tribunal, a barrister has been referred to the Bar Standards Board following misuse of ChatGPT. We also wrote up an unreported decision looking at what happens when the Home Office withdraws a decision under appeal. For everything else on Free Movement and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading 

“They hit us and watched us drown” – Lighthouse Reports, 16 September

Could your ancestry DNA results unlock citizenship? – BBC News, 20 September

Scrap policy that gives refugees with leave to remain 28 days to find housing, say UK groups – The Guardian, 18 September

RAF base unsuitable for asylum site, minister told – BBC News, 16 September

Windrush officials must improve after neglecting dying woman’s claim, says ombudsman – The Guardian, 18 September

First group of children from Gaza arrive in UK for life-saving NHS treatment – The Guardian, 15 September

‘We pray a visa comes before death’: Gaza’s injured children left in limbo – The Guardian, 18 September

Afghans who worked for the British Army are deported back to the Taliban – The i Paper, 19 September