This month Colin and Sonia cover the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin’s suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, the latest caselaw and some business immigration issues. If you...
This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin’s suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, we run through a load of cases and end by...
On 6 April 2023, the Home Office started data sharing with the financial sector again. This was foreshadowed in a speech by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on 13 December 2022. Sections 40A to 40H of the Immigration Act 2014 requires banks to carry out immigration checks on all customers with...
The aim of the hostile environment is to make life as difficult as possible for undocumented migrants in the UK. To achieve this, successive governments have required hospitals, banks and landlords to carry out document checks, preventing those without lawful status from accessing essential services such as housing and healthcare....
The government’s new Illegal Migration Bill is the latest in the long line of attempts to deal with refugee arrivals by making life difficult for them. In so doing, it sidesteps the real issues, the reality of both the facts of the refugee issue in the UK and where our...
We live in what some have called ‘multi-status Britain’, a country in which discrimination is baked into a social, economic and racial hierarchy based on different forms of legal status. With British citizenship, other forms of British nationality, indefinite leave to remain, permanent residence, the five year route to settlement,...
The High Court has ruled that the government’s second attempt to produce an immigration exemption to the Data Protection Act 2018 is still incompatible with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Only a week after the hearing, the judgment in R (on the application of the3million & Anor) v...
When employers apply for and are granted a licence to sponsor workers, they make a pledge to accept all the duties of sponsorship, and the Home Office can take compliance action when they consider that a sponsor has failed to uphold their duties or otherwise poses a risk to immigration...
This month marks twenty years since the signing of one of the most significant Franco-British treaties in the last 50 years, the Le Touquet treaty. Whilst Le Touquet, a seaside town on the northern French coast one hour from Calais, may conjure images of calm beaches where Macron escapes Paris...
Job Title: Training Manager Organisation: Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) Duration: Permanent Location: Hybrid / London Reports to: Chief Executive Responsible for: Administration Officer Annual leave: 25 days per annum plus bank holidays and Christmas closure period Salary: £34,000 – £37,000 depending on experience Working Hours: 35 hours per week....
The Financial Times is reporting today that “around 141,000” EU citizens had their digital status updated to “refused” last month. Their applications were previously refused by the Home Office but for some reason their online status had not been updated. Online status is used by employers, landlords, banks, the NHS,...
In a judgment handed down last Friday, the High Court has cast doubt on the British citizenship status of children born in the United Kingdom before 2 October 2000 to EU citizens who did not at that time possess indefinite leave to remain. The case is R (on the application of...
One of the measures announced by Rishi Sunak in his asylum statement on 13 December 2022 was the re-starting of hostile environment immigration checks on bank accounts. These checks were introduced by the Immigration Act 2016 but were paused by Sajid Javid in 2018 when he was Home Secretary. There...
Rishi Sunak announced yesterday a number of measures to address the government’s self-made asylum backlog. The tone of Sunak’s statement was more measured than the sometimes rather unhinged rhetoric to which we have become accustomed, although he still introduced the topic as being about “illegal immigration”. There were no attacks...
Well-known human rights barrister Adam Wagner, based at Doughty Street Chambers, recently published Emergency State: How we lost our freedoms in the pandemic and why it matters (Bodley Head, 2022). I’m going to start this blog post with a short fairly conventional review of the thrust of the book. But...
Across Europe, asylum seekers and displaced people are facing growing hostility as they look to start new lives escaping war and persecution. In Greece, there is continually mounting evidence of “pushbacks” to which Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, have been shown to be turning a blind eye....
In our October 2022 immigration update course we cover politics, asylum and small boat crossings, the statement of changes to the immigration rules (HC 719) and the latest immigration case law. The 50-minute podcast follows the running order below. Timestamps indicate when a particular section begins. Politics Braverman attacks modern...
Welcome to the October 2022 episode of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month, Colin and Sonia talk politics, asylum, the statement of changes to the immigration rules and case law. The episode is a bit longer than usual as there was a lot going on! If you would...
The Ukraine Extension Scheme is one of the three visa schemes set up for people displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine (alongside the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family Schemes). All three Ukraine Visa Schemes result in a grant of three years of limited leave to remain with the...
Imagine a scene. Prime Minister Liz Truss finds herself reading Free Movement blog tomorrow, sees the terrible harm her and her predecessors have been causing to documented and undocumented non-British citizens and decides to get rid of Britain’s borders. All of them. Those at port as well as those operating...
On 25 August 2022, the Home Office announced plans to fast-track the removal of Albanian nationals “with no right to be in the UK” under plans agreed with the Albanian government (it was said) “to tackle the scourge of small boat crossings”. The fast-track removal scheme appeared to be explicitly...
Priti Patel has resigned as Home Secretary. She jumped before she was pushed, with incoming new Prime Minister Liz Truss expected to replace the failed Patel with former Attorney General Suella Braverman. Patel was appointed Home Secretary by Boris Johnson in July 2019. Here we take a look at her...
On 5 September, the next in a long line of insufferable prime ministers will be announced. As the Conservative Party enters the final weeks of its leadership race, we ask, what bright ideas do our two hopeful candidates have in store when it comes to Britain’s borders? The last few...
Hubert Howard arrived in the United Kingdom in 1960, aged four. He was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies back then and was fully entitled to enter the country of his nationality. The law changed around him over the years but he carried on with his life, ending...
Owing a debt to the National Health Service is a ground for refusing applications for permission to enter or remain in the UK. Such debts arise because “overseas visitors” are charged for certain types of NHS treatment. The National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015 No....
There is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and British and Irish citizens are able to cross the land border freely. Section 11(4) of the Immigration Act 1971 means that journeys within the Common Travel Area — both over the land border, and across the...
Alleged abuse of statelessness route to citizenship The New Plan for Immigration identified the alleged problem that section 11 of the Act seeks to address as follows: We will also take the opportunity to close a nationality provision loophole which was intended to help those who are genuinely stateless. Under...
Whilst section 3 of the 1981 Act already provides for discretionary registration as a British citizen for any child born anywhere in the world, there is no equivalent provision for adults. With all the quirks, oddities and resulting injustices of British nationality law over the last century, this means that...
The updated paperback edition of my book, Welcome to Britain, is published today. You can order it from your Friendly Local Bookshop (its actually easier to use Google Maps than that website, frankly), directly from the publisher or from well-known internet retailers. If you’d like a signed copy, order one...
As seen throughout this course, the default setting of UK immigration law is that everyone who is not British or Irish needs permission to be in this country. For decades, EU citizens had permission because of European Union law. Following Brexit, EU law came to an end. Almost all EU...
What does it mean to be ‘westernised’? It is striking that a term that is used so frequently in this jurisdiction has never been more closely defined. I would suggest that this is because, like obscene material, it is because we ‘know it when we see it’. Some musing from...
The Home Office has conceded that EU citizens being lined up for deportation retain full residence rights in the meantime. This is so long as they have applied to stay in the UK under the EU Settlement Scheme and are protected by the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. The case involved a...
Over on family law blog Pink Tape, barrister Lucy Reed published what I thought was a really good blog post with suggestions on how to put together a decent training plan for Continuing Professional Development purposes. As she says, the training requirements for solicitors and barristers are now significantly deregulated,...
The legendary tome that is Macdonald’s needs no introduction for most immigration lawyers. It is the reference book on immigration law. If you want to know something and Google — or dare I say even Free Movement — fails you, this is the place to look it up. It’s certainly...
The Home Office is routinely missing its target for issuing new residence permits to people who lose their British citizenship, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. Those deprived of their citizenship for (often historic) deception are promised a decision on their human rights claim to remain in...
This is where we keep tabs on changes to UK immigration laws, rules and procedures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been trying to keep this post continually up to date rather than covering new coronavirus developments as separate blog posts that may become rapidly out of date. Material...
When a person’s visa expires whilst they have an outstanding application or appeal, they have what is referred to as “3C leave”. This is named after section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971, which essentially provides that the person’s visa continues until the application is decided. An important and seemingly...
We covered the nationality portion of the New Plan for Immigration in an earlier article. Many of those proposals, largely concerning British Overseas Territories citizens and the Windrush generation, were notably less cruel and unusual than the other aspects of the New Plan, and might even have been described as...
Assisting migrants who lack mental capacity to instruct a lawyer, or whose capacity fluctuates, can pose challenges. Without having clear instructions on a person’s immigration history and what they would like to do, it can often be impossible to provide legal advice and representation. Law Society guidance is also clear...
