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...