Two new Upper Tribunal cases emphasise the importance of the parties to an immigration appeal identifying and addressing all the issues in dispute. Both the cases were decided by a panel that included Mr Justice Dove, the President of the Upper Tribun ...

Further submissions or a ‘fresh claim’ is a process for submitting an asylum (or human rights) application where there has been a previous failed claim and all appeal rights have been exhausted. It can be an effective tool for rectifying years of ...

About half of the Home Secretary’s speech to the Conservative Party conference today was given over to immigration and asylum, but there were no new policy announcements. In fact it was, in structure, tone and content, much like last year’ ...

At the outset of the pandemic, on 23 March 2021, Upper Tribunal President Lane issued guidance for making deciding immigration appeals “on the papers”, without an oral hearing. As all immigration practitioners know, oral hearings are essen ...

The Home Office is now conceding three out of every ten immigration appeals before the hearing, a senior immigration judge has said. Michael Clements, President of the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), puts the cheerful stat down t ...

One of the recommendations to the Home Office in a recent report by the immigration inspector was to “professionalise” Presenting Officers. Among the suggestions was that a code of conduct was necessary for Presenting Officers to establish ...

The Home Office should do more to “professionalise” the officials it sends to argue immigration cases in court, the immigration inspector has found. A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, published today, s ...

Much has changed about the way asylum appeals in the First-tier Tribunal operate this year. But research spanning 2013 to 2019 indicates that a reliably fair and effective asylum appeal system was some way off even before the pandemic hit. Today the U ...

Home Office Presenting Officers are civil servants who represent the government in immigration appeals. Last month we ran an article by an anonymous HOPO describing how the immigration system looks from that side of the fence and inviting questions by ...

We Presenting Officers can usually be put into two categories. The first group is unable to see anything wrong with any decision and will defend it at all costs. Although hopefully they’re few and far between, anyone with a bit of experience before ...

On 4 August 2020, the Home Office issued new guidance to its civil servants on how to respond to immigration appeals that the department has lost. The 18-page document can be found here (pdf download). For the most part, the guidance is welcome. Anyon ...

With statistical assistance and input by George Symes. A person whose immigration application to the Home Office has been refused sometimes has a right of appeal. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, people essentially had a choice. Their appeal could be h ...

Immigration lawyers are warning that changes to legal aid for appeals lodged online during the coronavirus pandemic “will do irreparable harm”. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) says that adjustments to legal aid ...

The immigration tribunal is piloting a new system of automatically “de-listing” (judge-speak for cancelling or adjourning) appeal hearings where an appellant serves their bundle late. I’ve run into the pilot at Newport, but responses ...

The toxic wasteland of the Daily Mail’s back catalogue on the topic of immigration needs no introduction. It is perhaps no great surprise that, asked to spend some time at Taylor House immigration tribunal recently, the pithy headline for Mail r ...

Claiming asylum is an important human right backed by the United Nations Refugee Convention and recognised by countries around the world. In order to make this right a reality in practice, countries like the UK have set up systems by which people must ...

The removal of full rights of appeal for family visit visas in 2013 has led to a legal dilemma for those considering a challenge to a refusal: should they give up, re-apply, attempt a human rights appeal or launch an application for judicial review? T ...

The Court of Appeal in DW (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 797 has stepped in to overturn the First-tier Tribunal’s decision to block the deportation of an individual on the basis of his family life. Factua ...

When feeding my son, I sometimes have to heap the spoon up with something he likes to eat, to disguise something he does not. This is what the Home Office did when applying for permission to appeal in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Barry ...

The Upper Tribunal has in AS (Safety of Kabul) Afghanistan CG [2018] UKUT 118 (IAC) given new country guidance in cases concerning removal to Kabul. The new guidance covers two main areas of concern. The first is the risk, on return to Kabul, from the ...

Back in July 2015, the Upper Tribunal delivered a puzzling judgment in the case of R (Bilal Ahmed) v SSHD (EEA/s 10 appeal rights: effect (IJR) [2015] UKUT 436 (IAC). The nub of the decision was that where the Secretary of State refuses an application ...

The average immigration appeal takes almost 12 months to be resolved, up 13% on the same period last year. This is despite the fact that less than half as many people now have the chance to challenge Home Office decisions. The number of appeals handle ...

The difficulty of presenting asylum claims based on religion is well known. Such claims raise difficult evidential problems, which are addressed in this detailed post by Colin Yeo. But AS (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EW ...

R (Bashir) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 397 The British Sovereign Base Areas (“SBAs”) are small British-run areas on the Cyprus islands that survived the former colony’s independence. The Home Office has taken the ...