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 Home Office has finally responded to the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in the case of VI v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs C-247/20, handed down on 10 March 2022, by updating its guidance on European Economic Area (EEA) national qualified persons. The update effectively concedes...
Appendix EU and Appendix EU (Family Permit) have both received some updates in the latest Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules. The accompanying explanatory statement gives an overview of the changes that have been made. The changes come into force on 9 November 2022. A few of the definitions...
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...
One month into the job, it’s clear that Suella Braverman is good at making the headlines. However, some of her rhetoric may seem familiar. The government’s hostile environment policy is well-rehearsed and the media has played a significant and long-term role in developing the rhetoric that we see today. It...
The Home Office has agreed to review its policy Fee waiver: Human Rights-based and other specified applications, which provides guidance on the time limits for making human rights based immigration applications where an application is made after a fee waiver has been granted. This comes after confusion over deadlines threatened...
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....
The “hostile environment” that has come to define the UK’s approach to immigration policy is by now such a well-known phrase that I wonder if it has lost all meaning. It was no doubt used as a point of pride by those who popularised the term during Theresa May’s tenure...
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...
How is the Home Office doing with implementing the lessons it is supposed to have learned from the Windrush scandal? In March 2020, the independent Wendy Williams review of the department called for root and branch reform; the Home Secretary said that she accepted all 30 recommendations in full. 18...
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...
Eligibility for NHS treatment does count as Comprehensive Sickness Insurance, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled. The case is C‑247/20 VI v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Page contentsBackground: non-working EU citizens needed health insuranceWhy did it take so long to decide that the NHS counts...
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,...
Priti Patel has Been Very Clear that the problems in the asylum system are other people’s fault (including me and my “activist lawyer” colleagues) and that her Package Of New Measures will sort them out. But what do the government’s own experts think? Well, yesterday the Independent Chief Inspector of...
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...
On 20 July 2021, Free Movement published an article about the UK’s new Displaced Talent Mobility Programme, which concluded that it constituted “a new complementary pathway” for refugees to reach the country and “a positive step that will hopefully encourage other countries to do the same”. The purpose of this...
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...
Brexit begins on 1 July. From that date, “hostile environment” checks apply to EU citizens in earnest. It will no longer be possible to satisfy an immigration status check — for benefits, employment or a tenancy — by flashing an EU passport. Instead, as Home Office guidance puts it, EU...
The now notorious conclusions of the Sewell Report on race relations in the UK are no doubt at odds with the experiences of many in this country, in particular migrant communities. Surprisingly, however, the report didn’t comment on Britain’s immigration system at all. Leah Cowan’s Border Nation (Pluto Press) is...
The New Plan for Immigration Policy Statement of March 2021 (the New Plan) contains proposals to make significant changes to immigration and nationality law and policy. This article addresses the proposals set out in Chapter 3, which concern changes to British nationality law, in the hope of enabling affected people...
On the face of it, the current immigration ‘system’ does not resemble a true system at all. A member of the public reading newspaper headlines about the latest immigration controversy; a migrant trying to understand what documents to include with an application; a lawyer attempting to explain the nonsensical requirements;...
From ‘Citizens of the UK and Colonies’, to ‘Commonwealth Citizens’, to ‘subject to immigration control’: the legislative erosion of the Windrush generation’s British citizenship rights is laid bare at paragraphs 1-5 of R (Howard) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 1023 (Admin). Anyone with an interest...
