Today the Home Office announced a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules and confirmed that the Immigration Health Surcharge will go from £200 to £400 in December. A link to the full statement of changes is here and a summary of the changes from the immigration minister is here....
Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the harsh new immigration rules introduced on 9 July 2012. Tomorrow comes the Court of Appeal decision in the challenge to the spouse minimum income threshold. The effects of these rules are really beginning to bite: much misery has been caused by family...
In another leak exclusive to Free Movement it is possible to reveal further Immigration Rule changes to be introduced at short notice. It is understood the new Statement of Changes will be published on 25 December 2013, becoming the seventeenth Statement of that month and the 97th of this year....
A new Freedom of Information request has revealed that British women have been affected disproportionately compared against men by new minimum income rules for spouse and partner applications. There has been a 20% drop in the female-sponsored proportion of applications made, which suggests that women have been disproportionately put off...
Statement of Changes HC 820 was laid before Parliament yesterday, 12 December 2012, to come into effect today, 13 December 2012. You need look no further than the fact that this is the ninth Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules this year alone if you need to know what is...
Following the Supreme Court decisions in the cases of Munir and Alvi, as reported on this blog yesterday, the UK Border Agency has acted suspiciouslyextremely quickly: see the Statement of Changes CM 8423 dated 19 July 2012, to come into force on 20 July 2012. All 296 pages of it. See also...
New Immigration Rules have just been laid in Statement of Changes CM 7944. The main change is that the English language requirement for spouses and partners has been introduced, as expected. It takes effect for new applications made on or after 29 November 2010. Those with applications in before that...
The adult dependent relative rules have been buried in Appendix FM since their inception on 9 July 2012. From 1 June 2023, they have been transposed into their own standalone Appendix Adult Dependent Relative. The new appendix was announced in the 9 March 2023 Statement of Changes to the Immigration...
A new statement of changes to the immigration rules has now been published. The explanatory memorandum to the statement can be found here. The most significant changes are the addition of the Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme, and the introduction of the Innovator Founder route on 13 April 2023. The minimum...
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...
Yesterday the Home Office published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 511). It allows unaccompanied children to come to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme if they have notarised parental consent. This comes into force on 10 August 2022. Appendix Ukraine Scheme to the...
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...
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 Ukraine...
The government has published 205 pages worth of changes to the Immigration Rules. The changes are being phased in over the next few months, starting on 6 April 2022. Highlights include: Children who live in the UK for seven years can get immigration permission with settlement either immediately or after...
Social care workers can get Skilled Worker visas from 15 February 2022. The change was first announced on Christmas Eve and has now been confirmed in a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 1019), published yesterday. Employers (but not private households) will be able to sponsor care assistants,...
And just like that we have a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. HC 913 was laid yesterday, 14 December 2021, and solely addresses changes to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and Ex Gratia Scheme for Locally Employed Staff. It came into effect, wait for it…...
The latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 803) allows pork butchers to come into the UK as Seasonal Workers for up to six months. It came into force at 4pm on 1 November 2021. The government announced last month that 800 temporary visas would be made available...
The Home Office published a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules today. It is 108 pages long and the changes take effect on 6 April 2021 unless otherwise specified. Most relate to the work and study routes branded as the Points Based Immigration System, although there are various...
On 10 December 2020 the Home Office published a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules that appears to be a flagrant breach of the UN Refugee Convention. The purpose of the main change is to: Enhance our capacity to treat as inadmissible to the UK asylum system asylum claims...
The long-awaited statement of changes giving us more details on the famous “new Points-Based Immigration System” has now been published. It is over 500 pages long and even the explanatory memorandum, which is usually just a few pages long, weighs in at 50 pages. This article is a summary of...
Is a statement of changes even a statement of changes nowadays if it doesn’t introduce a new appendix to the Immigration Rules? On 10 September 2020, the government laid the first statement of changes of its infamous “new Point-Based Immigration System”. It includes the addition of five new appendices. The...
If you can say one thing about the Home Office, it’s that they have questionable priorities! In the middle of a pandemic, with thousands of migrants not knowing whether or not they will have to leave the UK in just over two weeks, the department has decided to publish a...
The government continues to keep us immigration lawyers on our toes, and everyone else completely flummoxed, with yet another statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. Thankfully, many of these changes are welcome as they plug gaps in the EU Settlement Scheme. But it is difficult to keep up with...
The first of no doubt countless statements of changes of 2020 was published yesterday, 30 January 2020. The main purpose of this set of changes to the Immigration Rules is to introduce the new Global Talent category, announced by the government earlier this week. The changes will take effect on 20...
Another statement of changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 170) was laid on 24 October 2019. The changes relate to Appendix EU of the Rules and their functioning in a no-deal Brexit scenario. This is somewhat surprising given recent events. Jacob Rees-Mogg said in Parliament on the same date that...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published today, 7 March 2019. It is 294 pages long and covers a lot of ground. The main changes are to Tier 1 entrepreneur and investment visas, and to the EU Settlement Scheme. This requires, inevitably, a new appendix to the...
The upshot of the Upper Tribunal’s decision in AK and IK (S.85 NIAA 2002 – new matters) Turkey [2019] UKUT 67 (IAC) is that a person who relies upon a different category of the Immigration Rules to succeed under Article 8 at their appeal or in a section 120 statement,...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was laid on 20 December 2018. It follows hard on the heels of another set published on 11 December, but these latest changes are to do with the EU Settlement Scheme rather than ranging across the immigration system. The Home Office...
A statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published today, 11 December 2018. The main changes are to introduce the pilot scheme for short-term agricultural workers that was announced earlier this year, and to expand the domestic violence settlement scheme to cover refugees. The more fundamental changes to Tier...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was laid on 10 October 2018. There is some very welcome news, including more flexibility given to caseworkers on whether and when they can write to applicants to ask for missing documents. (Whether they will in practice or still refuse for minor...
I couldn’t bring myself to spend a sunny weekend poring over the statement of changes to the Immigration Rules that landed on Friday afternoon, so here is a belated catch-up. In fact the changes are not the usual tinkering but the insertion of a new section, called Appendix EU, catering...
On Friday 15 June, a new statement of changes was laid. Rather atypically, many of the changes are welcome news! All changes will come into force on 6 July 2018, although some only apply to applications made after that date. As always, practitioners are encouraged to read the new rules...
A short Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC895 was laid yesterday, 15 March 2018. It makes minor changes to the Rules to take effect on 6 April. The explanatory memorandum summarises the tweaks as being to: Ensure that an asylum claim can be deemed inadmissible, and not be substantively considered by...
From the project description: Hundreds of thousands of decisions are made annually under the Immigration Rules. Decisions which can be life changing for those seeking entry or leave to remain in the UK and their families. But the Rules are widely criticised for being long, complex, and difficult to use....
A Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC309 was laid yesterday, 7 December 2017. This note does not aim at detailing all the changes, instead just highlighting the most significant ones. Except where otherwise indicated, these changes will come into force on 11 January 2018, although applications made before 11...
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 1078 was laid yesterday, 16 March 2017. It weighs in at 269 pages. Despite that, there was no space for any implementation of the MM judgment. The main headline changes are: Period of overstay before 12 month re-entry ban imposed reduced from 90...
The Tribunal Procedure Committee (TPC) is interested to receive your views on changes arising from the Immigration Act 2016, in particular to a number of changes to bail, which the Tribunal Procedure Committee considers may make amendments to the rules relating to bail applications desirable. The Immigration Act 2016 (“the...
