The immigration rules allow people to apply to remain in the UK on the basis of long residence. Those here lawfully can apply for indefinite leave to remain following 10 years’ continuous lawful residence in the UK. Those who had periods of overstay ...

Marepally v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 855 is yet another long residence case, this time concerning a defective refusal notice. The appellant wanted to rely on the defect to argue that he had achieved ten years’ c ...

Masquerading as a somewhat niche decision about non-payment of the Immigration Health Surcharge, R (Afzal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1909 is a beast of a case that: Extends the Mirza exception to retrospective invali ...

Some young people born or brought up in the UK without immigration status can now apply for settlement after five years rather than ten. The change in policy comes in a new and very welcome Home Office concession, published yesterday. What follows is ...

From a child’s perspective, seven years of residence in the UK can be literally a lifetime. It may be the sum of all the child’s experience and the UK may be the only home they know in any meaningful sense. On top of that, children do not make the ...

When it rains, it pours, and it has been pouring ten-year long residence cases. Here’s what we learned in just the last year: The difference between “book-ended” and “open-ended” overstaying (and that “book-ended ...

This, in a sentence, is the conclusion reached by the Upper Tribunal (after 248 paragraphs!) in R (Waseem & Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (long residence policy – interpretation) [2021] UKUT 146 (IAC). Background: over ...

In the messy case of Akter v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 704 the Court of Appeal considered that a second decision letter which generated a right of appeal might have continued the appellant’s lawful residence when ...

In Asif (Paragraph 276B, disregard, previous overstaying) Pakistan [2021] UKUT 96 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has confirmed that previously disregarded overstaying between periods of leave should be treated as lawful residence for people making 10-year l ...

Time is definitely a relative concept, a new Upper Tribunal decision suggests, examining the issue of what constitutes a “month” for the purposes of the Immigration Rules on long residence. The case of Chang (paragraph 276A(a)(v); 18 months?) [202 ...

Stealing someone’s identity is not a “false representation” for the purposes of a 20-year long residence application, the Upper Tribunal has found. The case is Mahmood (paras. S-LTR.1.6. & S-LTR.4.2.; Scope) Bangladesh [2020] UKU ...

In Hoque & Ors v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1357 the Court of Appeal addressed the issue of gaps in lawful residence in ten-year long residence applications. It found that the previous authority of R (Masum Ahmed) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 1070 – which ...

A post by a young Cambridge academic refused indefinite leave to remain after spending a year abroad has triggered a viral Twitter outpouring of indignation and support – but did the Home Office get it wrong? Today I’ve been in the UK for 10 years ...

Boris Johnson’s suggestion of an “amnesty for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants”, as the Daily Mail puts it, has ruffled some right-wing feathers, but would it really revolutionise UK immigration policy? Johnson, who looks set to secure vi ...

Migrants who have spent ten years in the UK with continuous and lawful leave can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Can leave be “continuous” if it involved short gaps between lawful periods of leave where an applicant has oversta ...

The President of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in OA and others (human rights; ‘new matter’; s.120) Nigeria [2019] UKUT 65 (IAC) has added another layer of complexity to an already biased and convoluted system. Readers are probably au fa ...

In the recently published case of MT and ET (child’s best interests; ex tempore pilot) Nigeria [2018] UKUT 88 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal looked again at the balancing exercise between a child’s best interests and the public interest when decidi ...

Practitioners commonly rely on the “integration test” in the Immigration Rules to resist an individual’s removal on human rights grounds. The current rules can in some circumstances require a consideration of whether there would be “very s ...

The issue of when a child should be expected to relocate to another country because of UK immigration laws is an emotive one. In 2012 a new Immigration Rule was introduced stating that a foreign child would be permitted to remain if the child had live ...

President McCloskey certainly isn’t wrong when he says of the immigration rules on human rights introduced in 2012: These provisions of the Rules have generated much jurisprudence during the last two years. In this latest contribution to that ev ...

Now in version 12, valid from 17 October 2014. The only major change seems to be removal of guidance on qualifying for ILR after 10 years through the private life route. Still includes the useful exception to requiring continuity of residence for thos ...

UPDATE: Haleemudeen on remittal to UT: SoS conceded Edgehill applied, no need for deference to post-July 2012 and found disproportionate on Art 8 — Mansfield Chambers (@MansfieldImm) June 20, 2014 The facts of Haleemudeen v Secretary of State fo ...

The Court of Appeal has in the case of Edgehill & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 settled the question of whether the new human rights rules introduced on 9 July 2012 apply to applications made before that dat ...

I was recently reviewing the long residence policy for an informal advice and noticed that since I last looked at it (admittedly a little while now) it has been substantially liberalised in respect of those who have gaps in their lawful residence. Thi ...

Two Statements of Changes to bring to your attention, HC1038 and HC1039. On Monday 1 April 2013, HC1038 came into effect and can be viewed here. Far weightier are the changes contained in HC1039 which will be brought into force on Saturday 6 April 201 ...

Yes another Statement of Changes – HC 565 –  has been laid and (hold your breath), most of it comes into force… today!  I am grateful to Alison Harvey at ILPA, whose hard-work is truly immeasurable:  an e-mail was sent out at 11p ...

As the second in a series of blog posts on the radical new July 2012 immigration rules we turn now to long residence requirements. Transitional Provisions Applications for indefinite leave to remain made under Paragraph 276B(i)(a) of the Immigration R ...

It looks like the 14 year rule may be for the chop. See this question and answer from Prime Ministers Questions yesterday: Mr Hollobone: … Under rules introduced in 2003, illegal migrants who manage to avoid the authorities for 14 years can app ...