In a decision that forced me to google Pericles (an ancient Greek politician) and Santayana (a Spanish-American philosopher) the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has
Biometric residence permits (BRPs), all issued with expiry dates no later than the end of December 2024, are being replaced with “eVisas“. To get their
The Home Office often makes mistakes when exercising its immigration powers. The high appeal success rates bear testimony to this: as many as 50% of
The change to the immigration rules on 11 April 2024 regarding how absences would be calculated in the long residence route initially caused a lot
Immigration law is constantly changing and the Home Office updates its guidance documents accordingly. Sometimes you will need to look at an older version of
On 10 April 2024 the Home Office introduced a fee waiver process for those applying to extend their leave in Appendix Hong Kong BN(O) however
The Home Office has updated its “Allocation of asylum accommodation” guidance so that a list of people who were previously excluded from the Bibby Stockholm,
This is our write up of the first of the Home Secretary’s recent dump of the much delayed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of
A few days before the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a series of sweeping changes to the Ukraine
Having presumably learned from their much criticised mishandling of certain trafficking cases, the government published a statement yesterday stating that they have paused consideration of
On 21 December 2023 the Immigration Minister published a letter setting out a concession for people who wish to make an application to the Hong
In Oluponle v Home Office [2023] EWHC 3188 (KB), the claimant was awarded £20,000 for 60 days’ false imprisonment. Several helpful comments were made on
In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and
A new version of the Home Office caseworker guidance “Withdrawing asylum claims” has been published, halving the amount of time people are given to explain
The Home Office has explained in newly published guidance ‘Asylum decision-making prioritisation‘ how they will decide the order for decision making of asylum claims. This
Staff working at Brook House immigration removal centre were verbally and physically abusive towards the people who were detained, including the use of extremely racist
The Home Office annual report for 2022 has belatedly been published. It shows an additional £3 billion had to be allocated to pay for unexpected
The Home Office may no longer be able to meet the rules it currently relies on to use the international aid budget to support people
Bill Gates once said that your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. If the same applies to the Home Office staff who
The Home Office is increasingly treating asylum claims as being withdrawn. This seems to be a new policy intended to reduce the asylum backlog. The
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
We live in a reaction economy. The age of social media means that governments, companies, and others in the public eye are not ruled by
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has now published a report on visit visa operations between December 2022 and January 2023 which confirms
The government is right that the asylum backlog needs to be urgently addressed, but the Illegal Migration Bill will not tackle the backlog in any
A new report by the international aid spending watchdog has revealed that the Home Office spent one third of the UK’s international aid budget on
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, has expressed his frustration at the Home Office’s inability properly and promptly to address report
The Home office has published new guidance introducing a streamlined process to deal with child asylum applications. The policy explained in the guidance apparently intends
To try to reduce the asylum decision backlog, the Home Office has introduced a “streamlined” process, including a questionnaire to be completed, in English, by
Quarterly immigration statistics released last week show the asylum backlog has hit a record high as 160,919 asylum seekers await an initial asylum decision, quadruple
The Home Office is not beloved as an institution. Some consider it necessary. But no-one likes it. That seems to include not just migrants and
Yesterday, the third annual inspection from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) of ‘Adults at risk in immigration detention’ was published. On
Almost five years after Amber Rudd committed to a review of individuals who had entered the UK under the Tier 1 (Investor) route, today, Suella
Yesterday the Home Secretary faced questions in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Today the quarterly statistics on immigration were released by the Office
Back in the heady days of 2019, journalist Jon Stone started what turned out to be a very long thread on Twitter. Over and over
At the now infamous Manston processing centre in Kent, conditions are dire. Home Secretary Suella Braverman has known for weeks about the situation and did
On 3 November 2022, the latest quarterly release of statistics on modern slavery claims was published, covering 1 July to 30 September this year. During
It hasn’t been a great week to be the Home Secretary or a Home Office official. Since Suella Braverman’s statement to the House of Commons
There have been lots of different numbers and statistics relating to the UK’s asylum system mentioned over the last week. One of these is the
An inspection report examining the use of hotels for housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children has been published this week, but the findings make for unsettling reading.
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
In a decision that forced me to google Pericles (an ancient Greek politician) and Santayana (a Spanish-American philosopher) the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has allowed an appeal relating to the Home Office’s refusal to disclose the report on “The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal”. This is the second...
Biometric residence permits (BRPs), all issued with expiry dates no later than the end of December 2024, are being replaced with “eVisas“. To get their eVisa, people need to register and set up an online account (see our step by step guide for help with this) so that they can...
The Home Office often makes mistakes when exercising its immigration powers. The high appeal success rates bear testimony to this: as many as 50% of some categories of appeal are allowed. However, there are only some limited circumstances where it is possible to extract compensation from the Home Office by...
The change to the immigration rules on 11 April 2024 regarding how absences would be calculated in the long residence route initially caused a lot of confusion because the drafting of the new rules was ambiguous, yet the updated guidance seemed to suggest that the 548 day limit no longer...
Immigration law is constantly changing and the Home Office updates its guidance documents accordingly. Sometimes you will need to look at an older version of the guidance that applied at a certain time but it is no longer on GOV.UK as it has been replaced with the new version. When...
On 10 April 2024 the Home Office introduced a fee waiver process for those applying to extend their leave in Appendix Hong Kong BN(O) however the new process introduces barriers that do not exist for other routes and will be insurmountable for some applicants, through no fault of their own....
The Home Office has updated its “Allocation of asylum accommodation” guidance so that a list of people who were previously excluded from the Bibby Stockholm, Napier and the other ex-Ministry of Defence sites and from having to share a bedroom, can now be accommodated in these places. The euphemism being...
This is our write up of the first of the Home Secretary’s recent dump of the much delayed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The one point I will make from the outset is that anyone who is working on Albanian claims should read the relevant...
A few days before the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a series of sweeping changes to the Ukraine schemes, giving just four hours’ notice of their implementation. Among the most significant changes are the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme, and a new...
Having presumably learned from their much criticised mishandling of certain trafficking cases, the government published a statement yesterday stating that they have paused consideration of asylum claims from a certain group. Those affected are people who arrived on or after 1 January 2022 and who received a notice of intent before...
On 21 December 2023 the Immigration Minister published a letter setting out a concession for people who wish to make an application to the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route but who are currently in the UK without permission. A formal Ministerial Authorisation under the Equality Act 2010 has also...
In Oluponle v Home Office [2023] EWHC 3188 (KB), the claimant was awarded £20,000 for 60 days’ false imprisonment. Several helpful comments were made on various Home Office failings during the detention process. Background The claimant was a Nigerian national who had been caught trying to fly to Ireland using...
In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 were brought into force) by the end of 2023. Yesterday he claimed that this goal had been achieved, despite the government’s statistics...
A new version of the Home Office caseworker guidance “Withdrawing asylum claims” has been published, halving the amount of time people are given to explain reasons for missing an interview as well as setting out some additional steps for those who miss an interview. You can see a comparison of...
The Home Office has explained in newly published guidance ‘Asylum decision-making prioritisation‘ how they will decide the order for decision making of asylum claims. This provides some much-needed clarity to the process. As anyone working in the sector can tell you, there is no fixed timeframe for an asylum claim...
Staff working at Brook House immigration removal centre were verbally and physically abusive towards the people who were detained, including the use of extremely racist language. There were 19 incidents of inhuman and degrading treatment of people at a single removal centre over a period of just five months. That...
The Home Office annual report for 2022 has belatedly been published. It shows an additional £3 billion had to be allocated to pay for unexpected asylum system expenditure. An extra £1.6 billion had to be allocated because of “pressures within the asylum system” — the asylum backlog, basically — and...
Bill Gates once said that your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. If the same applies to the Home Office staff who have the unenviable job of fielding complaints about their colleagues from irate migrants and their lawyers, their enlightenment must rival that of any Renaissance polymath....
The Home Office is increasingly treating asylum claims as being withdrawn. This seems to be a new policy intended to reduce the asylum backlog. The number of asylum decisions made by the Home Office at first glance appears to be increasing. When we look at the detail of the figures,...
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 Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). In Lata (principal controversial...
We live in a reaction economy. The age of social media means that governments, companies, and others in the public eye are not ruled by accountants assessing their bottom line or journalists scrutinising their actions, but by voters tapping onto their screens at home. Few government departments have embraced this...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has now published a report on visit visa operations between December 2022 and January 2023 which confirms that overall, this area of the Home Office is functioning well, with an apparent “focus on improving the operational effectiveness of the workflow tool”. Post-pandemic,...
The government is right that the asylum backlog needs to be urgently addressed, but the Illegal Migration Bill will not tackle the backlog in any meaningful sense and could cause devastating harm to the rights of some of the most persecuted people in the world and the international refugee system....
A new report by the international aid spending watchdog has revealed that the Home Office spent one third of the UK’s international aid budget on domestic asylum costs, leading to severe cuts to genuine international aid programmes. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) found that the permission given by...
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, has expressed his frustration at the Home Office’s inability properly and promptly to address report recommendations in his comments published yesterday alongside the annual report for 2021-22. The annual report was sent to the Home Secretary on 8 July 2022,...
The Home office has published new guidance introducing a streamlined process to deal with child asylum applications. The policy explained in the guidance apparently intends to help the Home Office fulfil the commitment made by Rishi Sunak to clear the asylum backlog by the end of 2023. The policy applies...
To try to reduce the asylum decision backlog, the Home Office has introduced a “streamlined” process, including a questionnaire to be completed, in English, by individuals from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, Yemen and Libya who claimed asylum before 28 June 2022. Around 12,000 questionnaires are expected to be sent out, with...
Quarterly immigration statistics released last week show the asylum backlog has hit a record high as 160,919 asylum seekers await an initial asylum decision, quadruple the number awaiting an initial decision at the end of 2019. In December 2022, following intense criticism over continuous unprecedented delays, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak...
The Home Office is not beloved as an institution. Some consider it necessary. But no-one likes it. That seems to include not just migrants and their families but also many of the civil servants at the Home Office itself, the lawyers and judges who interact with the Home Office and...
Yesterday, the third annual inspection from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) of ‘Adults at risk in immigration detention’ was published. On the same day, the Home Secretary discontinued the standing commission for this annual review. The report focuses specifically on the efficiency and effectiveness of Rule...
Almost five years after Amber Rudd committed to a review of individuals who had entered the UK under the Tier 1 (Investor) route, today, Suella Braverman provided the government’s final response. The review looked at individuals who had entered the UK between 30 June 2008 and the introduction of reforms...
Yesterday the Home Secretary faced questions in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Today the quarterly statistics on immigration were released by the Office for National Statistics. What do the two say about the state of the asylum process, backlogs and whether there is a brighter future in store?...
Back in the heady days of 2019, journalist Jon Stone started what turned out to be a very long thread on Twitter. Over and over and over again, he wrote “Abolish the Home Office”. Every tweet linked to example after example after example of appalling conduct by officials at the...
At the now infamous Manston processing centre in Kent, conditions are dire. Home Secretary Suella Braverman has known for weeks about the situation and did nothing until the media stepped in last week. But the UK is not alone in struggling to provide new arrivals access to safe and legal...
On 3 November 2022, the latest quarterly release of statistics on modern slavery claims was published, covering 1 July to 30 September this year. During this period, 4,586 people were referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) or via the Duty to Notify as potential victims of modern slavery. This...
It hasn’t been a great week to be the Home Secretary or a Home Office official. Since Suella Braverman’s statement to the House of Commons on Monday, there has been one crisis after another. The Manston facility remains egregiously overcrowded. The camp is designed to hold no more than 1000...
There have been lots of different numbers and statistics relating to the UK’s asylum system mentioned over the last week. One of these is the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their asylum claim. Depending on whether or not people include dependents, the backlog of initial decisions...
An inspection report examining the use of hotels for housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children has been published this week, but the findings make for unsettling reading. The report criticises the operation of what are effectively unregistered children’s homes and confirms that this is not an area in which the Home Office...
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...
