A care home operator has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to refuse a defined certificate of sponsorship request on the grounds that the care home could not provide official contracts for guaranteed hours of work to show that the jobs were genuine. The High Court’s decision in Hartford Care...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The Home Secretary has named her preferred candidate as the next Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration – John Tuckett, who is currently the Immigration Services Commissioner. It’s over to the Home Affairs Select Committee now, who will carry out a pre-appointment hearing before...
Once a charitable organisation has been granted a licence under the Charity Worker route, it will be able to begin sponsoring workers under this route. The work needs to be an eligible type of work and the applicant needs to meet various requirements in order to be eligible for sponsorship...
Appendix Statelessness replaced Part 14 of the immigration rules in January 2024. It provides a pathway for stateless people to obtain leave to remain in the UK. The application is free of charge and leads to settlement after five years. The Home Office guidance on statelessness “Permission to stay as...
In January 2024 the immigration rules were changed and statelessness family reunion was brought into Appendix FM. The new rules make no special provision at all for the families of stateless people and treat them in the same way as any family member of any other sponsor applying under Appendix...
It’s goodbye to 2024 in this month’s podcast, with Sonia and Barry wrapping up December. They spend a bit of time discussing eVisas at the beginning of the podcast, before moving on to asylum and trafficking where issues around the quality of decision making have been raised in a couple...
The Home Office has published updated guidance on “Temporary permission to stay: considerations for victims of human trafficking or slavery” that applies to reconsiderations requests of permission to stay decisions under that guidance, effective from today. A comparison of the changes (using this process) shows that the changes are on...
The government published a number of significant changes to their guidance for work sponsors on 31 December 2024 and 1 January 2025. The affected guidance includes: Although several guidance documents have been updated, in many instances these updates relate to the same changes and are to reflect updates elsewhere in...
The Charity Worker route is for voluntary workers aged 18 or over who wish to come to the UK to do work for a recognised charitable organisation. Work must be unpaid and fieldwork which contributes directly to the achievement or advancement of the sponsor’s charitable purpose – for example, in...
The UK has two sponsored work routes for religious workers: the T2 minister of religion visa for those with a key leading role in their faith-based organisation or religious order in the UK, and the temporary religious worker visa for those who support the activities of religious institutions in the...
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down judgment in two separate cases in December addressing the subject of family life between adult family members outside the “core” nuclear family of spouses, partners, parents and minor children. The court confirms that “additional elements of dependence, involving more than...
This is a lengthy briefing providing practical advice on how to prepare a case to ensure your client has the best chance of being granted temporary permission to stay for victims of human trafficking or slavery (referred to as “VTS leave”). In this briefing I focus on grants based on...
What can you do at level 2? Being qualified at OISC level 2 means you can undertake more complex casework. We offer a comprehensive online OISC Level 2 immigration and asylum training course, which covers the work that is in scope for a level 2 advisor in detail. When applying...
Every year I put together a round up of what’s been going on in the immigration world and here on Free Movement over the last year. In last year’s review I predicted that the government would bring the Illegal Migration Act into force and that as a result “the backlog...
The graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who previously had a student visa to: There is no requirement to have a sponsor in order to apply under this route. The application costs £822...
The Migration Advisory Committee has published its annual report for 2024. The letter from the Chair, Professor Brian Bell, to the Home Secretary summarised the report as follows: The report discusses the government’s intention to link migration and skills policy and recent UK net migration trends. We explore the relationship...
We have already looked at what work is and is not permitted at IAA Level 1. But what happens when someone approaches you and you are not allowed to help them? The answer is that you must either signpost them or refer them to another lawyer who can help them....
In the following units we are going to cover what the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA) is and how the regulatory scheme works, the levels under which IAA advisers work and the work that can be undertaken at each level, and finally, the Code of Standards, referrals and signposting. Introduction to...
Immigration applications are extremely expensive. Most requests for permission to stay in the UK (other than under the points based immigration system) now cost £1,258. In addition, applicants may need to pay an immigration health surcharge (£1,035 a year for adults and £776 for children). On average, therefore, migrants will...
In November 2024 there was a significant development in relation to the plight of around 64 people stranded on Diego Garcia, as the Home Secretary announced that she would be offering 61 of them the opportunity to be transferred to the UK. This week, on 2 and 3 December 2024,...
The UK’s global talent visa went live in February 2020, replacing the old Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route. Since that time, it has secured its place as a badge of honour for those deemed talented enough to obtain one. And with many applicants able to obtain indefinite leave to remain...
Statement of changes HC 334 has been published today stating that the concession allowing Ukrainians to travel to the UK without the need to enrol their biometrics in advance will end on 18 December 2024. As of 3pm today, subject to transitional provisions, Colombians must obtain entry clearance before coming...
The high potential individual visa is aimed at individuals who have graduated from a top global university. There is considerable international competition to attract these sorts of individuals, who ministers like to call the “brightest and best”. A visa aimed at them can therefore be seen as a pitch: a...
As promised, I have taken the Law Society’s Immigration and Asylum senior caseworker reaccreditation exam. I passed but definitely have some notes on where a couple of questions could be improved (Law Society – call me!). Below I explained a bit more about how it works and have set out...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! As predicted, “small boats week” didn’t exactly dominate news coverage last week, despite reports of further deaths. A couple of articles worth reading are Lizzie Dearden’s one on Home Office officials’ doubts over the government’s small boats plan and Enver Solomon in the Guardian on why “smash the gangs”...
Colin’s back! But for how long? All is revealed in our October roundup podcast. Plus Sonia and Colin discuss hot topics such as the new practice direction for appeals in the First-tier Tribunal, appeals backlogs, issues in asylum interviews and reaccreditation for the Law Society’s immigration and asylum scheme. We...
The High Court has dismissed a challenge to changes made to late applications to the EU Settlement Scheme which removed the right to appeal where it is not accepted that the applicant had a good reason for applying late (i.e. where the application is rejected as invalid, rather than being...
Asylum seekers who would otherwise face destitution must rely upon support from the government. This support is limited to either £8.86 a week if their accommodation provides meals or £49.18 in other cases which means most will struggle to meet their basic needs. Given this meagre level of support, it...
Family Table of Contents Popular family briefings from Free Movement Essential training resources for family immigration law Get free access with a Free Movement membership As a member, you’ll gain full access to our in-depth courses on family immigration law, Appendix FM, Article 8 and more. Plus all associated eBooks—completely...
The skilled worker visa is the main work route under the points based immigration system. It was introduced on 1 December 2020, replacing a visa called Tier 2 (General). Joanna has previously explained the legal requirements for this visa. For example, the role must have a skill level of at...
The Home Office can impose entry bans on people who have previously breached immigration law or used deception in their application for leave. Bans can last one year, two years, five years or ten years. Generally speaking, and except for some minor exceptions, the person will not be allowed to...
The Senior President of Tribunals has issued a new Practice Direction of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal taking effect from 1 November 2024. This replaces the previous version dated May 2022. The new version is considerably longer, up from 12 pages in the previous version to...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a report on “An inspection of contingency asylum accommodation November 2023 – June 2024” highlighting the usual problems around lack of stakeholder engagement and data as well as concerns about the lack of Home Office checks on accommodation providers. The...
The UK immigration system as it applies to the creative sector is a complicated hodgepodge of different categories, each with their own requirements and restrictions, advantages and disadvantages. These include visitor-based routes, such as creative visitors, permit free festivals and permitted paid engagements, as well as the now ubiquitous sponsored...
The Court of Appeal failed to seal the applicant’s notice in a case, resulting in an almost two year delay. The applicant was asked to make the application again and request an extension of time. When he did so there was then incredibly another two year delay in the Court...
The Law Society is launching its latest round of reaccreditations for senior caseworkers and supervising senior caseworkers in immigration law. Here we take a look at what we know and do not know about the scheme and then turn to how we can help you at Free Movement. Before we...
Spain has been ordered by the European Court of Human Rights to pay a Nigerian woman €15,000 in damages as compensation for failures relating to the investigation of allegations that she was trafficked to Spain for forced prostitution. The case is T.V. v. Spain (application no. 22512/21) and although the...
