The process for identifying and supporting survivors of trafficking has been seriously degraded over the past couple of years and in this article I look at the position in relation […]
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 […]
The UK government is limiting evacuations from Gaza to British citizens only, forcing families to separate if any of them are to be safe, leaving others in extremely dangerous circumstances. […]
Making a mistake on an immigration application form can be disastrous. If the mistake is interpreted by officials as an attempt to mislead or deceive, the application may be refused. […]
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 […]
A would-be student stopped on arrival in the UK was wrongly denied a solicitor in interview, the High Court has found in R (on the application of Kumar) v Secretary […]
On 26 May, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) published a report ‘Asylum Screening in the UK: An audit of the UK’s asylum intake, registration and screening procedures and recommendations […]
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 […]
Wednesday 10 May 2023 saw a few developments with the Illegal Migration Bill, as the second reading took place in the House of Lords, and the Equality Impact Assessment was […]
The government’s new Illegal Migration Bill is the latest in the long line of attempts to deal with refugee arrivals by making life difficult for them. In so doing, it […]
The Illegal Migration Bill paints a picture of irresponsible refugees who seem to delight in travelling illegally to the UK in dangerous small boats. Its claim to prevent refugees travelling […]
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 […]
As well as guidance for individuals receiving the new asylum questionnaires under the streamlined process, Refugee Action has produced guidance for unregulated or OISC Level 1 caseworkers, and guidance for […]
Resources have been published by Refugee Action to assist those who have received one of the new asylum questionnaires under the Home Office’s streamlined process. You can read more in […]
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 […]
On 15 February 2023, the High Court yet again found that the Secretary of State’s policy prohibiting migrants from accessing mainstream welfare benefits was unlawful. The policy, known as the […]
This post provides an update on legal challenges to the Home Office’s policy and practice of requiring people on immigration bail to wear Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. You can […]
The scandal of asylum-seeking children going missing from Home Office hotels (Ministers resist terms such as ‘kidnapped’) is an extreme situation. But they are not the only children suffering at […]
Last week the immigration inspector published a 74-page stinging criticism of the Home Office’s approach to family reunion applications. After three previous inspections the Home Office’s performance had “deteriorated” and […]
This month marks twenty years since the signing of one of the most significant Franco-British treaties in the last 50 years, the Le Touquet treaty. Whilst Le Touquet, a seaside […]
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 […]
The Upper Tribunal has confirmed that a recognised victim of trafficking who is also an asylum seeker, partly fearing re-trafficking on return as well as political persecution, should have been […]
The High Court has determined that there are no damages available for people who were subject to the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) policy in the case of Home […]
The Home Office’s new policy temporary permission to stay for victims of trafficking and slavery was published on 30 January 2023. It accompanies the new appendix to the Immigration Rules […]
Rishi Sunak announced yesterday a number of measures to address the government’s self-made asylum backlog. The tone of Sunak’s statement was more measured than the sometimes rather unhinged rhetoric to […]
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 […]
The Home Office has released a new Interim Guidance: Requesting a second opinion for an external medical report/Medico-Legal Report as part of their offender management caseworker guidance. The new guidance […]
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 […]
The Home Office has finally responded to the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment in the case of VI v Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs C-247/20, handed down […]
The Home Affairs Select Committee held an oral evidence session about Channel crossings and other key asylum issues last week. Since the evidence that was heard on Wednesday, figures and […]
Small boat crossings attract a lot of media and political attention. The images we see of refugees arriving on our shores clearly upset some people. The Conservative Member of Parliament […]
One month into the job, it’s clear that Suella Braverman is good at making the headlines. However, some of her rhetoric may seem familiar. The government’s hostile environment policy is […]
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 […]
There are a number of general and individual judicial review challenges to the government’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda. To recap, in April 2022 the government announced a […]
It has been six months since the UK announced its initial response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, allowing those affected by the outbreak of conflict to arrive or remain […]
As we reported last week, a recent letter from government lawyers clarified the Home Office’s position that “[s]ince July 2022… migrants who cross the Channel in small boats who are […]
Suella Braverman’s speech to the Conservative Party conference yesterday evening confirmed two things. She really doesn’t like the Human Rights Act, the Modern Slavery Act or the European Court of […]
On 25 August 2022, the Home Office announced plans to fast-track the removal of Albanian nationals “with no right to be in the UK” under plans agreed with the Albanian […]
We first heard of the Windrush scandal in early 2018, as a result of powerful investigative journalism. It stands for decades of injustice experienced by thousands, whose lawful existence in […]
When the pandemic first hit in March 2020 the Home Office was quick off the mark in allowing employers to conduct right to work checks remotely. Rather than having to […]
