All Articles: Ukraine

Spring budget migration announcements

Yesterday’s Spring Budget 2023 announced upcoming changes to the business visitor visa requirements and the addition of construction workers to the Shortage Occupation List. Additional

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The Upper Tribunal has held that an Afghan man who was living in Ukraine at the time of the Russian invasion and who wanted to come and join his brother in the UK was lawfully refused a grant of entry clearance under the Ukraine schemes. The case is R (on...

21st August 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Home Office introduced immigration concessions and special visa schemes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. These were the Ukraine family scheme, Ukraine extension scheme, and Homes for Ukraine scheme. The department’s “core plan” was to issue visas rather than formal refugee status to Ukrainian citizens,...

25th June 2024
BY Free Movement

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...

4th March 2024
BY Dmitri Macmillen

As trailed previously, a statement of changes has been published today removing the rights of care workers to bring dependants to the UK. What was not mentioned in advance was that this statement of changes would also close the Ukraine Family Scheme with immediate effect (from 3pm 19 February 2024),...

19th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

On 17 July 2023, a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published. As usual, it is accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum. Also as usual, it is largely concerned with cracking down on those perceived as abusing immigration law. There are, though, one or two positive changes. Asylum...

18th July 2023
BY Deborah Revill

The Ukraine Scheme homelessness statistics released each month provide an update on the long-term consequences of additional schemes for people with Ukraine Scheme visas. Monitoring of progress through regular data publication (even if incomplete) highlights where the government and local councils are doing well, and where they are not. You...

9th June 2023
BY Josie Laidman

Yesterday’s Spring Budget 2023 announced upcoming changes to the business visitor visa requirements and the addition of construction workers to the Shortage Occupation List. Additional language support for Ukraine Visa Scheme holders was also announced. Business visitor visa The changes expected in autumn 2023 will include expanding the range of...

16th March 2023
BY Josie Laidman

In AB v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Ors [2023] EWHC 287 (Admin), the High Court found that the Home Office did not discriminate against Afghan nationals, compared to Ukrainian nationals, in the context of the biometrics requirement for entry clearance applications. The facts AB worked as...

14th February 2023
BY Francesca Sella

The Ukraine Extension Scheme is one of the three visa schemes set up for people displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine (alongside the Homes for Ukraine and Ukraine Family Schemes). All three Ukraine Visa Schemes result in a grant of three years of limited leave to remain with the...

19th October 2022
BY Jennifer Blair

The Home Office has published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 719). The explanatory memorandum confirms that the changes are largely focused on the government’s continued efforts to simplify the rules, and on implementing policy changes that have recently been put in place. The majority of...

19th October 2022
BY Josie Laidman

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 in the UK under visa-based immigration routes. Three routes were made available: These visas grant three years limited leave to...

10th October 2022
BY Jennifer Blair

The Home Office has published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 17). It is largely focused on changes to the asylum system following the passage of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the agreement with Rwanda to export refugees to that country. The changes come...

12th May 2022
BY CJ McKinney

Imagine you are a Ukrainian refugee. Imagine you have left your home, your job, and almost all of your possessions behind. Perhaps your husband or son or father — or perhaps all of them — have stayed behind to fight. You head for the nearest border. Maybe that is Poland,...

14th April 2022
BY Colin Yeo

There is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and British and Irish citizens are able to cross the land border freely. Section 11(4) of the Immigration Act 1971 means that journeys within the Common Travel Area — both over the land border, and across the...

8th April 2022
BY Jennifer Blair

The Home Office has agreed to withdraw its decision to refuse asylum to a Ukrainian man who evaded the military draft, meaning that an appeal from the country guidance decision of PK and OS (basic rules of human conduct) Ukraine CG [2020] UKUT 314 will no longer be heard by...

31st March 2022
BY Julian Norman

The Home Office is writing two special visa schemes for Ukrainians into the Immigration Rules and adding a third for people already here. Statement of changes HC 1220 codifies the existing Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme (described here) from today, 30 March 2022, and creates a new...

30th March 2022
BY CJ McKinney

As a result of the almost aggressively complex way our immigration system works, not just in law but procedure as well, Ukrainians applying under the Ukraine Family Scheme or Homes for Ukraine may appear to be granted less time in the UK than they were promised. Applicants to both schemes...

29th March 2022
BY Alex Piletska

The Upper Tribunal has handed down a new country guidance decision on draft evaders from Ukraine, PK and OS (basic rules of human conduct) Ukraine CG [2020] UKUT 314 (IAC). The judgment contains important guidance on the relationship between the Refugee Convention and international humanitarian law (IHL), as well as...

7th December 2020
BY Alex Schymyck

Last year, the Upper Tribunal refused to recognise my client PK as a refugee, despite acknowledging the risk of a Ukrainian conscript being associated with organisations committing acts contrary to international humanitarian law. This resulted in the dismissal of numerous other appeals of the same nature after the Secretary of...

25th October 2019
BY Ruslan Kosarenko

In PK (Draft evader; punishment; minimum severity) Ukraine [2018] UKUT 241 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has refused to protect a Ukrainian draft evader despite acknowledging that there is evidence that taking part in the conflict might involve committing acts contrary to the “basic rules of human conduct”. The tribunal found...

15th August 2018
BY Alex Schymyck
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