The Safety of Rwanda (Immigration and Asylum) Bill has been published. There is no explanatory memorandum that I have seen, so I have done my best without that to explain what is in the Bill. As was the case with the Illegal Migration Bill, it begins with a declaration by...
The House of Lords’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has published a report criticising the Home Office on two fronts. This is in relation to Draft Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2023 and linked Draft Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023, and the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations...
The Illegal Migration Act 2023 has now been published, after receiving Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. Previously, we have covered the provisions of what was then the Illegal Migration Bill in detail, so for the purposes of this article we look at what substantive changes have been made during...
The British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Act 2023 came into force on 29 June 2023. It inserts a new section 50B into the British Nationality Act 1981. Section 50B definitively and retrospectively confirms the British nationality status of all children born in the UK between 1 January 1983 and 1 October 2000 to an […]
...As the House of Common’s second reading of the Illegal Migration Bill takes place today, this post looks at the detention provisions in clauses 11-14 and what they mean for individuals arriving in the UK. You can read Colin’s analysis of the Bill in full, here. Page contentsThe current legal...
The Illegal Migration Bill was published yesterday. You can access the Bill here and the Explanatory Notes here. While it remains a Bill, the individual provisions are referred to as clauses and once it becomes an Act — as it surely will — they are referred to as sections. The...
On 1 July 1962, sixty years ago today, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 came into effect. It is hard to overstate the importance of this landmark legislation. Aliens were already subject to a separate, full system of immigration control under the Aliens Restriction Acts 1914 and 1919 and the Aliens...
A new law preventing migrants from using their residence permits to prove their right to rent or work in the UK is coming into force without robust parliamentary debate. From 6 April 2022, no migrant in the UK will be able to use their biometric residence permit or card as...
Following the Conservative Party’s victory in the December 2019 general election, and the passing of the Withdrawal Agreement Act on 23 January 2020, the UK has now left the European Union with a divorce deal. Under the deal, formally called the Withdrawal Agreement, there is a transitional period running from...
One of the fundamental principles of the rule of law is that the law “must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible, clear and predictable” (Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law, 2010). The reasons for this should be self evident. Just as it is impossible to play a sport fairly...
The Queen’s Speech was today. This sets out the legislative agenda for the new Government and lists expected new Acts of Parliament the Government hopes to pass in the coming year. There are reports that this Queen’s Speech may be intended to cover a two year period, but with the...
The end of immigration appeals from within the UK is nigh: section 63 of the Immigration Act 2016 is being brought into force from 1 December 2016 by the Immigration Act 2016 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1037SI 2016/1037). The change introduces a power for the Home...
The Free Movement online course on the Immigration Act 2016 is now available. Based on the text of the popular ebook, the course is enhanced with 32 minutes of key points videos and clear signposting of which sections of the Act are currently in force and which are not. There is...
The Immigration Act 2016 was signed by Her Majesty the Queen on 12 May 2016. Some sections of the Act came into effect immediately but most sections were dependent on being brought into force by commencement orders at the discretion of the Minister. We have seen one commencement order so...
The Government’s “right to rent” scheme requiring landlords to conduct “papers, please” checks on the immigration status of tenants comes into force today, 1 February 2016. It is hard to think of a worse example of a disproportionate policy, classically defined as a hammer being used to crack a nut. Who...
The Home Office today announced that all landlords in England and Wales will be forced to carry out “papers please” right to rent immigration checks on tenants from 1 February 2016. This is despite the Home Office’s own research, also published today, and independent research all finding that there was...
I gave a 25 minute presentation on the Immigration Act 2014 and new Immigration Bill at the JUSTICE annual human rights conference yesterday. As an experiment, I tried recording myself and have combined the audio with the slides. Enjoy. Or not. I have also uploaded the audio track separately as...
The second reading of the Immigration Bill in the House of Commons is today. We have seen how even more appeals will be out of country under its regime, and the greater powers given to immigration officers under Part 3. Part 6 – including Schedules 7 and 8 – offers...
Part 3 of the Immigration Bill gives a host of new, wide powers to immigration officers. A person with leave to enter arrives in at the airport. Schedule 19(1) and (2) – the first section of Part 3 – gives immigration officers the power to curtail leave, rather to simply...
The Immigration Bill 2015 was published on 17 September 2015. For now, this post provides links to further reading and resources on the Bill and also some commentary on the appeals sections, which are of the most direct interest to immigration lawyers like myself. I may update and perhaps republish the...
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 announcement...
Full appeal rights for applications under the Points Based System are being ended with effect from today, 2 March 2015, and for all other cases from 6 April 2015. The initial change applies to those who make an application on or after 2 March 2015 under Tiers 1, 2 or 5, and of course has […]
...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...
When reviewing the Home Office’s new Appeals Guidance policy document I was reminded of a new feature of the appeals regime that is an important one but which was tucked away in the schedules to the Immigration Act 2014. A new expanded section 120 of the 2002 Act is introduced...
Even aside from the issue of an unpublished law purporting to have any effect, the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 3, Transitional and Saving Provisions) Order 2014 (SI 2014/2711) is a dog’s breakfast. At first blush it appears to bring into effect the new unified removal power at section 1 of the Immigration Act...
“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes...
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...
As predicted, the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014 are official and come into effect on 20 October 2014. More analysis to follow in due course for Free Movement Members. Headline changes seem to me to be that: Costs can be awarded in the First-tier Tribunal and therefore...
The most devastating aspect of the Immigration Act 2014 (“2014 Act”) is the brutal scything of appeal rights. The Government has triumphantly declared that it has reduced the number of appeal rights from 17 (the number of immigration decisions in s.82 NIAA 2002 as it stands, plus s.83 & 83A...
This post is a brief summary of the removals and nationality provisions of the Immigration Act 2014, and is accompanied by an audio extract from a seminar given by Colin Yeo, Sadat Sayeed, Mark Symes and I at Garden Court Chambers on 13 August 2014, at which I spoke on...
The Immigration Act 2014 requires judges to take into account certain public interest considerations when deciding immigration cases. Little weight is to be attached to x, the politicians tell the judges through the medium of the legislation, and in y situation there is no public interest in removal. More specifically,...
This post is based on an earlier page I made available to Free Movement Members a couple of weeks ago, before Statement of Changes HC 532 took effect. The commencement date of 28 July 2014 has been and gone and we have also seen commencement of the overseas deportation appeals sections...
Today the new out of country deportation appeal provisions of the Immigration Act 2014 came into force, at least in part. The new regime enables the Secretary of State to require any appeal against deportation to be brought from abroad only, both in UK law and EU law cases. This...
The first Commencement Order for the Immigration Act 2014 has been made: the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 1, Transitory and Saving Provisions) Order 2014 (SI 2014/1820). There is no known date for commencement of the main right of appeals provisions or the new removal power but some of the provision of...
No, not an amendment to take account of the judgment in O v The Netherlands C‑456/12 (blog post: Surinder Singh immigration route) [ed: who knows how long we will have to wait for that] but one to try to limit the period during which an EU national is considered to be a...
Only yesterday, the day before the debate on the third reading of her Immigration Bill, the Home Secretary published a proposed amendment to the Bill whereby she will be able to deprive a person of British citizenship acquired by naturalisation even if by doing so she will render the person...
The new Immigration Bill proposes removal of rights of appeal to an independent judge, to be replaced with and replacement with ‘Administrative Review’ by one of its own staff. Immigration appeals have almost a 50% success rate according to the Government’s own figures: A recent Freedom of Information request I...
