New long residence case
In the case of MD (Jamaica) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 213 the Court of Appeal has
In the case of MD (Jamaica) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 213 the Court of Appeal has
The Lib Dems have tabled an objection to the latest Immigration Rules changes, covered earlier here on the blog. Under the ‘scrutiny-lite’ negative resolution procedure
I’ve just come across an interesting little judgment on mandatory refusal cases. It is only a permission decision so it has limited precedent value, but
After being trailed on breakfast TV, the new rules on students were eventually more formally announced last week. It seems the education sector is in
UKBA have changed their removals policy, and not in a nice way. The announcement letter to stakeholders is available here and does not really tell
In an unusually dramatic move, the Presenting Officer in the recent case of KB (para: 320(7A): “false representations”) Albania [2009] UKAIT 00043 served a section
No time for a proper post on this new case from the tribunal, NA & Others (Tier 1 Post-Study Work-funds) [2009] UKAIT 00025, so I’ll
Wending my way north on the train at an ungodly hour this morning, I found my reserved seat was opposite a fellow immigration lawyer I
The determination concerns the award of a qualification for the purposes of Tier 1: Post Study Work rather than the bigger issue of the silly
The Home Office have today announced some changes to the Points Based System for Tier 4 students. In summary, the main changes are: 1. Transitional
There are reports that the Home Office just conceded a judicial review against the maintenance requirements under the Points Based System (PBS). This could be
The Home Office recently increased the minimum age for both spouses to 21 if a foreign spouse is to enter the UK on a spouse
The flunky that writes the Home Office press releases really needs to tone it down and get a grip. One of the latest batches of
News from ILPA is that the recent trend towards rejecting in-country applications to switch to become unmarried partners is a temporary blip. A strict reading
UKBA have announced a limited concession to the rise in the visa age to 21 for spouses and partners. The concession is simply that the
Free Movement may be cursed. Almost as soon as I blogged about DP3/96 it was scrapped, and now the same has happened to DP5/96. Phil
I want briefly to acknowledge the passing of the Working Holiday Maker scheme today. It was one of the last vestiges of the favourable treatment
UPDATE: the seven year children rule has been scrapped. Read more here. — There are two immigration rules that can be used to acquire settlement
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. “Cameron, David” has lodged an Early Day Motion opposing the latest change in the immigration rules (both latest
The Home Office has announced that major changes to the student rules will apply from March 2009. Allegedly, students are being brought within the ‘points
Only yesterday I was telling someone there is no timescale for the Home Office to introduce this controversial measure, but today it has been announced
The Tribunal have just issued a determination holding that proxy marriages in Brazil must be recognised in English law. The case is called CB (Validity of
[UPDATE: case overturned by Supreme Court] In a case called AM (Ethiopia) & Ors v Entry Clearance Officer [2008] EWCA Civ 1082 the Court of Appeal has
The new Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas, yesterday announced the announcement of new rules for visitors. Spot the deliberate tautology? The Home Office seems to have
It sounds from various internet forums as if the British High Commission at Canberra is getting tough on applicants for Tier 1. Where applications have
Favourite shortage occupation: meteorologists It’s official: we don’t have enough home-grown talent in the weather forecasting department and need to import skilled weatherpersons from abroad. In
News from the front line is that Entry Clearance Officers (ECOs) are overturning refusals under immigration rule 320(7B) that were made before the string of
One of the annoyingly frequent changes to the immigration rules has just been issued and can be found here. These sometimes come out as often
Thanks for those who posted comments pointing the way to updated guidance to visa officers on the issue of contriving to frustrate immigration rules. The
Following on from the parliamentary debate last week, the Entry Clearance Guidance (ECG, until recently rather quaintly called the Diplomatic Service Instructions – I always thought the
Some great news on the re-entry ban saga. There was an unusually good debate in the Commons last night, when several MPs managed to put
The Home Office has managed to change the online guidance on DP3/96 surprisingly rapidly and these are now available to read. See chapter 53, section
The Government has lost yet again. I’m beginning to feel embarrassed for them. These repeated legal defeats smack of a basic failure to comprehend the idea of
In terms of scraping the bottom of the barrel, this is beaten only by the withdrawal of the non-removal policy for over 65s. Why oh
An interesting case is circulating amongst immigration lawyers at the moment but has not been officially reported. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal reporting process is
Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, has written to the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) with some further clarification on the no return amendment to paragraph
The Home Office and UK Visas have published guidance on their website about how their decision-makers should apply the re-entry ban and the concession that
In response to a comment left on my last post, I should make it clear that the concession as it stands in Hansard only applies
Immigration lawyers have been shocked by Government proposals to introduce from 1 April 2008 a re-entry ban on immigrants who have previously breached UK immigration
Permission was granted today by Mr Justice Sullivan in a judicial review of the decision to retrospectively change the immigration rules on the qualifying criteria
In the case of MD (Jamaica) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 213 the Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals against refusals under the long residence immigration rules. In both cases the immigrants had short gaps in their lawful residence and had...
The Lib Dems have tabled an objection to the latest Immigration Rules changes, covered earlier here on the blog. Under the ‘scrutiny-lite’ negative resolution procedure by which the rules become law there will therefore, unusually, be a debate in Parliament on the new rules. Although on past form probably not...
I’ve just come across an interesting little judgment on mandatory refusal cases. It is only a permission decision so it has limited precedent value, but it is worth highlighting. The case is SA (Pakistan) v SSHD [2009] EWCA Civ 1510 and concerns the mandatory refusal grounds set out at Immigration...
After being trailed on breakfast TV, the new rules on students were eventually more formally announced last week. It seems the education sector is in for a double whammy. The Points Based System gets worse and worse and excludes more and more fee-paying international students while Mandelson is busy slashing...
UKBA have changed their removals policy, and not in a nice way. The announcement letter to stakeholders is available here and does not really tell half the story. In essence, the 72 hour notice period for removals is to be waived in a wide range of cases and no-notice removals...
In an unusually dramatic move, the Presenting Officer in the recent case of KB (para: 320(7A): “false representations”) Albania [2009] UKAIT 00043 served a section 40 notice on a witness in the case, thereby depriving him of his British citizenship. There is a right of appeal to the tribunal against...
No time for a proper post on this new case from the tribunal, NA & Others (Tier 1 Post-Study Work-funds) [2009] UKAIT 00025, so I’ll just paste in the headnote, which speaks for itself: i. The new-style Immigration Rules governing Tier 1 (Post Study Work) contain a Maintenance (Funds) requirement...
The determination concerns the award of a qualification for the purposes of Tier 1: Post Study Work rather than the bigger issue of the silly maintenance requirements. Senior Immigration Judge Spencer finds that a person has not been awarded a qualification until they have received the qualification certificate. My own...
The Home Office have today announced some changes to the Points Based System for Tier 4 students. In summary, the main changes are: 1. Transitional arrangements on maintenance are extended to 30 September 2009, meaning the applicant need only show the necessary money in their bank account at the date...
There are reports that the Home Office just conceded a judicial review against the maintenance requirements under the Points Based System (PBS). This could be a very important development, and more posts (or comments, below) will follow as details become available. The challenge appears to have been based on the...
The Home Office recently increased the minimum age for both spouses to 21 if a foreign spouse is to enter the UK on a spouse visa. The same requirements apply to unmarried, same sex and civil partners. As discussed previously on this blog, the justification given by the Home Office...
The flunky that writes the Home Office press releases really needs to tone it down and get a grip. One of the latest batches of press releases is entitled ‘Tough new rules target bogus colleges and education cheats‘. The words ‘bogus’ and ‘cheats’ are very strong indeed. Yet there is...
News from ILPA is that the recent trend towards rejecting in-country applications to switch to become unmarried partners is a temporary blip. A strict reading of immigration rule 295D(i) shows that, unlike for spouses and civil partners, a person with leave to enter the UK (as opposed to leave to...
UKBA have announced a limited concession to the rise in the visa age to 21 for spouses and partners. The concession is simply that the rule will not be applied to spouses and partners seeking entry to accompany or join immigrants in the temporary visa categories, such as students or...
Free Movement may be cursed. Almost as soon as I blogged about DP3/96 it was scrapped, and now the same has happened to DP5/96. Phil Woolas has withdrawn DP5/96 as of 9 December 2008. This was the seven year policy under which a child resident in the UK for seven...
I want briefly to acknowledge the passing of the Working Holiday Maker scheme today. It was one of the last vestiges of the favourable treatment of Commonwealth countries and their nationals. It was always problematic, to be honest. Whites could get into the country under the scheme but non-whites could...
UPDATE: the seven year children rule has been scrapped. Read more here. — There are two immigration rules that can be used to acquire settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain, or ILR) after a long period of residence in the UK. There is also a third option, which I will also...
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. “Cameron, David” has lodged an Early Day Motion opposing the latest change in the immigration rules (both latest changes: typically, the first set were badly drafted and needed almost instant amendment after publication). Thanks to John O at NCADC for spotting this...
The Home Office has announced that major changes to the student rules will apply from March 2009. Allegedly, students are being brought within the ‘points based scheme‘. However, anyone reading the Statement of Intent with the details of the new rules will quickly see that it is a complete misnomer...
Only yesterday I was telling someone there is no timescale for the Home Office to introduce this controversial measure, but today it has been announced it will take effect from 27 November 2008. The history is that a consultation was put out in 2007 about raising the minimum age of...
The Tribunal have just issued a determination holding that proxy marriages in Brazil must be recognised in English law. The case is called CB (Validity of marriage: proxy marriage) Brazil [2008] UKAIT 00080. There seem to be a lot of these Brazilian proxy marriages about at the moment. I had...
[UPDATE: case overturned by Supreme Court] In a case called AM (Ethiopia) & Ors v Entry Clearance Officer [2008] EWCA Civ 1082 the Court of Appeal has just upheld the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s approach to the question of what lawyers call ‘third party support’. Third party support is financial...
The new Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas, yesterday announced the announcement of new rules for visitors. Spot the deliberate tautology? The Home Office seems to have improved the amount of warning it now gives us when making planned changes to the rules (although the debacle around the no return rule might...
It sounds from various internet forums as if the British High Commission at Canberra is getting tough on applicants for Tier 1. Where applications have been submitted that include evidence (e.g. payslips) that show the person has worked for more than the permitted 12 months while on a working holiday...
Favourite shortage occupation: meteorologists It’s official: we don’t have enough home-grown talent in the weather forecasting department and need to import skilled weatherpersons from abroad. In order to tell us that it will rain again. The other highlight is ballet dancers. The full list is here. It relates to the...
News from the front line is that Entry Clearance Officers (ECOs) are overturning refusals under immigration rule 320(7B) that were made before the string of concessions was announced. Just ask for a review, you shouldn’t have to make a second application and pay the whacking great fee for their ‘service’...
One of the annoyingly frequent changes to the immigration rules has just been issued and can be found here. These sometimes come out as often as fortnightly, and I can remember a number of occasions when they have been so ill conceived they’ve had to withdraw them immediately. They once...
Thanks for those who posted comments pointing the way to updated guidance to visa officers on the issue of contriving to frustrate immigration rules. The guidance is here and reads as follows: ‘Contrived in a significant way to undermine the intentions of the immigration rules’ is where an applicant has...
Following on from the parliamentary debate last week, the Entry Clearance Guidance (ECG, until recently rather quaintly called the Diplomatic Service Instructions – I always thought the idea visa officers were diplomatic was rather optimistic) on immigration rule 320(7B), the automatic re-entry ban for overstayers and other breachers of immigration...
Some great news on the re-entry ban saga. There was an unusually good debate in the Commons last night, when several MPs managed to put the screws on Liam Byrne, the Minister, and extracted three excellent concessions. All credit to those responsible, who appear to be Simon Hughes, John Spellar...
The Home Office has managed to change the online guidance on DP3/96 surprisingly rapidly and these are now available to read. See chapter 53, section 53.3 of the Enforcement Instructions and Guidance (formerly known as the Operating Enforcement Manual or OEM). The EIG are addressed to immigration officers and other...
The Government has lost yet again. I’m beginning to feel embarrassed for them. These repeated legal defeats smack of a basic failure to comprehend the idea of rule of law. That’s OK with individual politicians, of whom you can’t generally expect very much, but it is deeply worrying with a...
In terms of scraping the bottom of the barrel, this is beaten only by the withdrawal of the non-removal policy for over 65s. Why oh why would they bother? Since at least 1993, there has been a policy that where a British citizen marries a foreign national who is here...
An interesting case is circulating amongst immigration lawyers at the moment but has not been officially reported. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal reporting process is somewhat opaque, to put it mildly. Back in The Day, the tribunal used to send copies of all determinations to various organisations, and then lawyers...
Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, has written to the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) with some further clarification on the no return amendment to paragraph 320 of the immigration rules (see here, here and here for previous posts on this). There are no shocks, really, but he does rather usefully...
The Home Office and UK Visas have published guidance on their website about how their decision-makers should apply the re-entry ban and the concession that was announced. Unfortunately, they appear to be sticking to the strict terms of the concession that was announced in Parliament, meaning that the concession only...
Immigration lawyers have been shocked by Government proposals to introduce from 1 April 2008 a re-entry ban on immigrants who have previously breached UK immigration laws. The ban was debated in the House of Lords last night. This is very rare for changes to the immigration rules, which are usually...
Permission was granted today by Mr Justice Sullivan in a judicial review of the decision to retrospectively change the immigration rules on the qualifying criteria for settlement under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. The case will now proceed to a full hearing. The background is that since 2002 the government...