Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Okay, it’s a Monday, so let’s do the good news first. Bibby Stockholm is empty. Friday was the deadline for the Lord Chancellor to make an announcement on legal aid fees for immigration and asylum work, following the settlement of Duncan Lewis’ judicial review in September....

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Manston is back in the news after the Home Secretary withdrew her decision of September 2024 not to hold a statutory inquiry into what happened in 2022 when the Home Office “completely lost grip” on the centre. A judicial review that was due to be heard last...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The National Audit Office reported last week that the Home Office managed to buy the asbestos contaminated Northeye for a mere £9 million pounds more than it had been sold for the year before. The site was intended to be used as asylum accommodation but...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! As predicted, “small boats week” didn’t exactly dominate news coverage last week, despite reports of further deaths. A couple of articles worth reading are Lizzie Dearden’s one on Home Office officials’ doubts over the government’s small boats plan and Enver Solomon in the Guardian on why “smash the gangs”...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The bad news is that we apparently have to tolerate yet another media contrived “small boats week”. The good news is that this is the exact opposite of a quiet news week and the US election will presumably drown out most other news, whatever...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Last week the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published a report looking at several regulations including the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2024, part of which is now in force. It appears that the regulations were laid at least in part because applicants...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The government continues to reference Migration Advisory Committee advice in response to questions about expanding the right to work for those waiting for an asylum decision. As I have pointed out before, the committee has recommended that the right to work is not limited to roles on...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The lack of options for people to come to the UK in safety continues to make news. There was the story of the Ukrainian woman whose 11 and 15 year old children were refused permission to join here, with no right of appeal at first. Two...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! I am away this week, so if anything big has happened since Thursday, that’s why it isn’t in here.  The latest tribunal statistics are out and it continues to be bad news for a government which would really like to stop hearing the words “asylum...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! There was big news on Friday as we heard that the Lord Chancellor has conceded the judicial review challenging inaction on legal aid fees for immigration and asylum work. Usefully, we have a fairly clear timetable for when action needs to be taken. The government has...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Issues around the EU Settlement Scheme continue to make news, with the latest being the story of a Polish man who the Home Office was trying to remove despite his having lived here for 20 years and having applied twice to the EUSS.  We are one year...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Another eight people died in the Channel over the weekend while trying to come to the UK. The government continues to focus on securitisation alone, as a new Border Security Commander is announced and the prime minister seems to believe that there is something useful to...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Following last week’s disaster in the Channel in which six children and a pregnant woman were among the dozen who lost their lives, everyone should read this article by a Syrian refugee in the UK highlighting the problems with the government’s approach to...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! David Bolt, the interim Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, recentlly published an update on the team’s work. There are two reports currently with the Home Secretary awaiting publication, those are the Country of Origin information report on Rwanda which was sent to her on 16...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! I noticed what appears to be an interesting change of framing on eVisas last week. A written question for the Home Office on the roll out of the new system was answered in a way that seems to downplay the importance of the...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Over the weekend, another two people have died trying to cross the Channel from France to the UK. A family whose eldest daughter died in the attempt a couple of weeks ago explain why they will continue to try to make the crossing....

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It has been a week of terror for many after far-right racists have run riot across across the UK, culminating in the attempt to burn down two hotels where people who had come to the UK and asked us to protect them were living. The thugs are...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! For the third week in a row a person has died trying to cross the Channel to get to the UK. 23 people have lost their lives attempting that journey and there is a lot of this year left. Still nothing from the new government...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! There were two separate incidents last week in which a person lost their life while trying to cross the Channel. On Wednesday one person died and 71 were rescued, and the next day one person died and 85 were rescued. Nothing yet from the new government...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Friday morning saw yet another avoidable tragedy as four people died while trying to cross the Channel to reach the UK. While the Prime Minister has sensibly declined to commit to “stopping the boats” (they will not stopped but can be reduced), the...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! For those who are interested, here is the list of ministerial appointments from Friday. As expected, the Home Secretary is now Yvette Cooper. Diana Johnson and Angela Eagle have been added as Home Office ministers this morning but I haven’t seen any detail of their...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! We are finally down to the last few days before the election, and Refugee Council has published what looks like a pretty strong list of “day one” recommendations for the new government on asylum. The King’s Speech will take place on 17 July and we wait to...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It was Refugee Week last week and so we updated and republished some of our explainers, including this one which takes an in depth look at the latest data on the asylum system. The backlog has essentially moved to the extremities of the asylum system,...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! When I wrote up RAMFEL’s section 3C case last week I ended on the point that the use of digital immigration status is incompatible with the hostile environment. It is difficult to see how the government’s switch to digital status is going to be anything...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The Home Office appears to be continuing to refuse to release those people being unlawfully detained under threat of being sent to Rwanda, as Bail for Immigration Detainees and others reported further bail grants last week. The new date provided by the Home...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Let’s start off with some litigation updates. As part of the FDA’s judicial review which remains listed for Thursday this week, the government has told the High Court that it will not carry out enforced removals to Rwanda before the election. That confirmation was formally requested...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! What a week. After calling an election for 4 July, the Prime Minister said that no flights to Rwanda would take off before the election. There is no reason to believe that we will have anything other than a Labour government following that election and...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Confusion reigned last week, so there is very little press coverage of the decision by the High Court in Northern Ireland that I can actually link to, but here is my brief write up in which I point out that the current Rwanda...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! It looks like the government has lost in the High Court in Northern Ireland this morning (Ed: remember the newsletter goes out by email on Mondays – sign up below!), in a challenge to the Illegal Migration Act brought by the Northern Ireland...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The first hearing has been listed in the next round of the Rwanda litigation. On Friday, Mr Justice Chamberlain ordered a rolled up hearing to take place within the window of 4 to 7 June with a time estimate of one day. This is the challenge...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! First of all, a quick reminder that our membership prices are going up on Wednesday this week (1 May).  It’s been a week. On Tuesday morning, hours after the Safety of Rwanda Act completed its final stages in parliament, five people included a little girl died while trying to...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! The only version of the Prime Minister’s press conference that I recommend reading is this fact checked one by Lizzie Dearden. As my periodic reminder that there are two countries involved in this process, it is worth checking in with what is happening at Rwanda’s...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! “Election vanity scam” (as coined by someone who seemingly works for the Home Office) is probably the most accurate description of the Rwanda plan at this point. As I have said before, best case scenario for the government surely has to be that any...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! On the asylum front, things are still relatively quiet but this is very much the calm before the storm, as the Rwanda Bill is expected to pass next week. We will then hopefully at least get some clarity as to how the government intends to...

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Over the weekend, the number of people who have crossed the Channel to the UK by small boat reached 5,435. This is a 43% increase from the same time last year. Although all of these arrivals would be blocked from the asylum system if...

It looks like the next time we will see the Rwanda Bill is Monday 15 April, which the government is presumably fine with despite noises to the contrary given a) it isn’t going to stop people coming, b) Rwanda isn’t ready yet, and c) they don’t seem to have any...