This page provides some useful websites for more information and advice, to help find a lawyer and to access asylum and health support. Page contentsModern slavery – for survivors and members of the publicInvestigating exploitationInformation and adviceFirst respondersFinding legal representationAsylum supportOrganisations working directly to support victimsHealth & treatmentClient in detention...
Page contentsHow do I identify a trafficked or enslaved person?Forms of coercionSigns that a child may be traffickedSigns an adult is involved in child trafficking How do I identify a trafficked or enslaved person? All too often, the answer is “with great difficulty”. There are many published indicators of trafficking and...
Panorama, Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets is required viewing for anyone interested in immigration in the UK. It is also deeply uncomfortable viewing. It documents an undercover investigation into Brook House, one of the UK’s 13 Immigration Removal Centres. The episode shows detainees subjected to severe violence, taunting, and mistreatment. A...
In March 2017 the Home Office announced a new policy of reviewing whether all refugees require protection at the end of a 5 year initial period of Refugee Status. This policy is effective for all existing and future applications for Indefinite Leave to Remain (‘ILR’) as a Refugee. This policy...
The pilot of the Athens Refugee Legal Support Project has now run for 2 months now. We work out of a community centre in Athens with the support of ILPA and Garden Court Chambers. Weekly reports from UK legal volunteers (solicitors, barristers, case workers) tell a similar story. The Greek...
LC (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 340. The Home Office has relied on outdated guidance to determine asylum applications from Albanian nationals, the Court of Appeal has held. The judgment in LC (Albania) will have far-reaching effects for those people denied protection under...
Owing a debt to the National Health Service (NHS) 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....
Where an EEA national and his or her third country spouse separate or do not live together but remain married, the third country national spouse will continue to be the family member of that EEA national and will continue to have a right of residence as long as the EEA...
The Home Office has announced a new policy of reviewing whether all refugees require protection at the end of a five year initial period of leave. The policy appears to be effective immediately for all refugee settlement applications, including for refugees already resident in the UK and who were expecting...
There has been a massive batch of new guidance and forms issued today. At the time of writing these were the updates so far (updated 25/11/16): Application to extend stay in the UK as a partner: form FLR(M) Form UK Visas and Immigration Updated: 25 November 2016 UK ancestry Guidance...
Appendix FM guides A collection of posts explaining Appendix FM, which contains the rules on non-EU family migration Scroll For More FORMS AND GUIDANCE APPENDIX FM Family immigration rules APPENDIX FM-SE Evidence and other requirements IMMIGRATION DIRECTORATE INSTRUCTIONS Internal guidance for Home Office officials APPLYING TO REMAIN IN THE UK...
Welcome to the July 2016 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This episode I cover some important EU law issues then move through a considerable number of cases and appeal issues and then end with some updates on new and changed Home Office policies. The material is all...
The Immigration Act 2016 expands out of country appeals potentially to apply to all non-asylum appeals. In short, this is achieved by amending section 94B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (which was inserted by the Immigration Act 2014) to remove the references to deportation and thereby widen...
Yes, there is a right of appeal against a refusal of entry clearance, even under the appeals regime introduced by the Immigration Act 2014. I mention this because a client’s appeal was just rejected by the First-tier Tribunal under rule 22 of the procedure rules on the basis that there...
In the ensuing dialogue, Committee Experts expressed concern about the possible repeal of the 1998 Human Rights Act as it was feared that the new Bill of Rights would weaken the protection of children’s rights. Experts were very worried about the increase in child poverty, which was up two per...
The first question to ask when considering pursuing an appeal is whether there is actually a right of appeal to start with. If so, then an appeal can be lodged with the tribunal. If not, the only court challenge available will be an application for judicial review. There are three...
Lone women in Pakistan without family support may be at risk of persecution, rules tribunal: (1) Save as herein set out, the existing country guidance in SN and HM (Divorced women – risk on return) Pakistan CG [2004] UKIAT 00283 and in KA and Others (domestic violence – risk on...
The position of third country family members of EEA nationals is a potentially vulnerable one. The right to reside of the family member flows entirely from the EEA national, meaning that if the EEA national loses their own right to reside or leaves the UK, the family member is generally...
As discussed earlier, the family members of an EEA citizen who is exercising treaty rights might in some sense be said to have a right of residence with the EEA citizen, but it is probably more accurate to see the situation as being the EEA citizen having a right to...
This weekend, I spent Saturday at the Immigration Law Practitioners Association Annual General Meeting. What a lark. The main attraction, other than catching up with (increasingly) old friends, was a talk by David Bolt, the newish Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. It was clear from his presentation that he...
David Bolt, the former spy turned new(ish) Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has issued a new report on Home Office decision making in settlement applications. The full report and Home Office response can be accessed here. The report is generally positive but the inspectors are critical of some aspects...
My colleague Adrian Berry has done an excellent write up of one of his cases over on his blog that I can heavily recommend as reading: British Citizenship by Descent:Trial and Error. The case is R (Bondada) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 2661 (Admin), a...
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 297 was published today, 13 July 2015, having been trailed in The Daily Mail over the weekend. It includes some significant changes, particularly for international students. I’m technically on holiday, so I’ve elected to do some heavy cutting and pasting from the ministerial...
The key reason why women are refused asylum in Europe is because they are not believed. So let’s imagine a woman comes to the UK to seek protection from human rights abuses. Let’s call her Malaika. Chances are that Malaika will have experienced some form of sexual violence before she...
The Administrative Court last week (22.5.15) handed down judgment in the case of R (on the application of AB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 1490 (Admin), quashing a decision not to recognize AB as a victim of human trafficking for the purposes of the Council...
The treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans asylum seekers has been notoriously poor for many years. In 2010, my organisation, the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, exposed that 98-99% of gay and lesbian asylum seekers had been refused asylum and told to go back, often to violently homophobic...
The change that is of most direct interest to immigration lawyers is the simultaneous change to appeal rights and to the power to remove overstayers: these were brought into effect in parallel, at the same time. The changes to rights of appeal are brought about by sections 15 and 17...
Garden Court Chambers is running a free seminar on The Immigration Act 2014: Appeals, Administrative Review and Judicial Review. The provisions represent a major change, with fewer migrants entitled to appeal and on far fewer grounds. The commencement and transitional provisions are unhelpfully complex. Three expert practitioners will guide you...
A new “health surcharge” was introduced for all new applications for entry clearance or leave to remain made on or after 6 April 2015. The charge is £150 per year for students and £200 per year for all other types of application. A charge is payable for each dependent as...
When it comes down to it, the underlying purpose of any lawyer using social media professionally is to make money. The most straightforward way to achieve this is to attract more clients, and also to retain existing clients who otherwise have been lured away by competitors. Clients who use social...
New Social Security Advisory Committee Report voices concerns On 20 November 2014, the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) published its Report on the regulations which remove entitlement to Housing Benefit for certain categories of European Economic Area (EEA) jobseekers. The Committee expresses a number of concerns about the impact of...
It has been announced today by Minister for Security and Immigration James Broken-shire that Part 4 of the Immigration Act 2014 is to be brought into full effect on 2 March 2015. This amends the procedure for marriage and civil partnership for everyone (not just foreign nationals) and creates new...
The scope of the other Convention reasons is open to some discussion but the broad meaning of “religion” or “political opinion”, for example, is reasonably obvious. Not so the Convention reason of “membership of a particular social group”. This reason was added late in the drafting process of the Refugee...
Sweeping changes to appeal rights, a new non independent “administrative review” procedure and further changes to deportation appeal rights are taking effect on 20 October 2014, at least in some cases. This post will be updated as and when more concrete information becomes available because all we have at the...
Page contentsThe new Administrative ReviewSection 3C and extension of leaveChoice of remedy: choose wiselySection 16: administrative review review The new Administrative Review For those whose immigration applications are refused and who would formerly have had a right of appeal from within the UK, an application for ‘Administrative Review’ is now...
Part 3 of the Act is intended to create a hostile environment for undocumented migrants. Chapter 1 creates a civil financial penalty regime for private landlords requiring them to check the immigration status for tenants. Maximum penalties are currently set at £3,000 and provision is made for the scheme to...
Getting it right There are a number of essential ingredients to a successful and valid immigration application, all of which need to be included: Correct form: use of certain forms for certain applications is mandatory Correct fee: correct fee must be paid (see the complete table of fees) Fully completed...
There are two places we can look to see what the approach of the Home Office is to Zambrano cases. The first is the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016, which set out the legal framework, and the second is Home Office policy documents, which set out how the framework...
As of 9 July 2012 the rules for spouses and partners are set out in Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules and also in Appendix FM-SE, which includes some major and substantive requirements not immediately apparent in Appendix FM itself. it is at least now available in native webpage format...
