What does the immigration white paper say about family, deportation and other areas?

Following on from my look at the proposals for work and student routes, I have now tackled the rest of the immigration white paper. There is a lot of repetition and bumf about how well the government is doing (this paper needed a good editor imo), so I have tried to cut through all of that to identify actual proposals for change. Even then some of this is quite thin.

Family

Family routes

It is difficult to choose the most egregious bit of the white paper, but a contender is certainly the complaint at paragraph 132 that “An overly high proportion of family-related immigration cases are now decided on the basis that they are “exceptional” to the normal rules, rather than being in line with the rules set down by Parliament, and that undermines control and confidence.”

Most people who rely on exceptional circumstances under Appendix FM do so because they are unable to meet the minimum income threshold which was raised from £18,600 to £29,000, a change that the Labour government have shown no indication of reversing. Nor have they expressly cancelled increases planned by the previous government which would take that minimum all the way up to £38,700, instead merely commissioning a review of the proposals (which is due fairly soon).

The paper refers to evidence early last year estimating that the average salary for people in the Appendix FM partner route was around £27,200 per year. Between the removal of occupations below RQF 6 and this, the white paper looks a bit like an attack by the Labour government on lower earners.

What they actually plan to do about this supposed problem of cases relying on exceptional circumstances will possibly involve primary legislation as the paper states at paragraph 152 that a new framework is “to be endorsed by Parliament for those seeking to enter or stay in the UK, including on the basis of exceptional circumstances, who do not fall within our family policies.”

The new framework will apparently also “limit successful claims” from people who try to:

• get round the rules, for example by falsely claiming an intention to come to the UK as a short-term visitor, and then seeking to stay on the basis of family relationships

Visitors are already excluded from applying under Appendix FM unless they can establish “unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant, their partner, a relevant child or another family member” as set out at GEN.3.2.(2). This is already an incredibly difficult test to meet and it is hard to see how it would be possible to make it more restrictive and remain compliant with article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

• frustrate and delay removal with spurious claims in an attempt to stretch out their stay in the UK, and thereby increase the eventual likelihood of having an Article 8 claim upheld, and 

This seems to be a fairly sensible change, but I suspect that my definition of spurious claims is different to that of the Home Office, and as ever I am concerned about people’s lack of access to proper legal advice, meaning that claims may not be presented properly in the first instance through no fault of the applicant.

• make immediate claims for wider family members after arriving in the UK including after making dangerous journeys to get here.

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what they are talking about here, possibly some sort of exclusion from refugee family reunion for people who have crossed the Channel? What is the reference to “immediate claims” though? If anyone can parse meaning from this, please let me know.

It seems from paragraph 156 that the government will amend section 117B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum 2002 to “strengthen” the public interest considerations in article 8 cases. There are also references to clarifying article 8 rules “and set out how they should apply in different immigration routes so that fewer cases are treated as “exceptional”. They again refer to doing something to limit who can actually apply relying on exceptional circumstances (so perhaps doing something like extending the prohibition on visitors using the rest of Appendix FM to GEN.3.2.(2)).

Paragraph 149 indicates that changes to the suitability rules in family routes will be “considered” relatively soon. Perhaps through extending more of the general grounds for refusal in part 9 of the immigration rules to Appendix FM?

Settlement

Good news is fairly rare in the paper, but there are some positive changes that the paper states will be made “in the near term” (presumably the imminent (?) statement of changes) which include a new bereaved parent route which will allow bereaved parents of British or settled children to apply for settlement immediately, as in the bereaved partner route.

There will also be some changes to support children who have been in the UK and discover when they turn 18 that they do not have status. Not sure what checks that will be doing on the “we didn’t know” element of that, but I do not like that reference to “discovery” is included. It appears the focus of this route may be children in care and care leavers (paragraph 267).

Dependant family members in other routes

The proposals at paragraph 146, to be put in place by the end of this year, mainly seem to extend provisions to dependants in work and study routes. The new “family policy” will:

• cover all UK residents including those who are British, settled, on work routes or refugees seeking to bring family members to the UK
• have clear relationship requirements, designed to ensure only those in genuine, subsisting relationships qualify, reduce forced marriage and include protections for victims of domestic abuse
• ensure those coming to the UK have an appropriate level of English language skills, to be able to effectively integrate into local communitiesensure the family unit has sufficient money financially to support any migrants without relying on the taxpayer through reviewing and extending the financial requirements to other dependant routes, and
• ensure that those who serve or have served as members of HM Armed Forces, bravely protecting our country, and their dependants, have their rights to reside in the UK and become British citizens protected in line with this Government’s commitment to them, in the Armed Forces Covenant.

Extension of the child registration fee waiver to young adults?

Naturalisation applications attract steep fees. A fee waiver is available for some children to register as British citizens, and the white paper says that the government “will consider measures to reduce the financial barriers to young adults, who have lived here through their childhood, from accessing British nationality”. So this will hopefully be an extension of a fee waiver process, but again it is unclear.

Refugees

Not much on offer here, just a review of sponsorship under the resettlement schemes.

Windrush

This has its own section but nothing new is mentioned in here that I can see, certainly no sign of the much needed and asked for provision of legal aid to those trying to access the Windrush Compensation Scheme. Instead we see Windrush hollowly name checked as we are told that the findings from the Windrush Lessons Learned Review:

will be embedded within the Home Office to make sure equality and ethical standards are at the forefront of all departmental decisions and that the Department considers the impact of all its work on people from every background and ensures that people who have contributed to the UK are valued and not unfairly discriminated against.

That is not really the vibe I am getting from this white paper, but sure.

Survivors of domestic abuse

It appears that the firewall between the police and immigration enforcement preventing some women from reporting domestic abuse may finally go (paragraph 180). This would be a welcome change and one that has long been requested by those working in the sector.

The hostile environment goes (more) digital

It seems that the roll out of eVisas and electronic travel authorities may mean that the Home Office is finally able to monitor when people leave the UK (paragraph 203). They also intend to do a lot more monitoring of people within the UK and sharing information with other government departments, essentially the hostile environment is going fully digital. An absolutely terrifying prospect given the state of eVisas, rife with errors.

There will apparently be more automation in applications where leave is being extended, perhaps similar to the checks used under the EU Settlement Scheme.

There is also reference further down in the paper to working with HMRC and HM Treasury on immigration enforcement action against those who have leave or are applying for it and have not paid tax owed to the UK. This seems a bit like a solution without a problem, but maybe there is some data out there (there is none in the white paper) showing that this needs to be addressed.

Age assessments

Imagine letting Chris Philp bully you into doing something when you are in a government with a majority of over 150 seats, instead of telling him where to go. The white paper refers to “improving the robustness of the age assessment process, which includes exploring scientific and technological methods to ensure adults are not wrongly identified as children”. Whether this exploration will involve using the regulations made by the previous government remains to be seen.

Deportation

The rules and processes for deportation are to be “simplified” (does anyone else get a chill hearing that word in connection with the immigration rules?) according to paragraph 185 which also refers to “further targeted action against any recent arrivals who commit crimes in the UK before their offending can escalate”.

Deportation is to be extended to some non-custodial sentences (paragraph 236). There is currently a government amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which will mean that a conviction which results in placement on the Sex Offenders Register will lead to exclusion from refugee status. Those are likely to also lead to deportation under the new proposals

Conclusion

Now we wait for something more concrete in relation to who will be affected and when. Hopefully those potentially affected will not be left in uncertainty for too much longer, particularly those who are already in affected routes and are now experiencing high levels of anxiety because they do not know if and to what extent they will be affected.