The Home Office’s processes for investigating complaints of alleged incidents of staff and contractor misconduct towards immigration detainees has been held to be unlawful by the High Court, because of a failure to disclose the evidence relied on. The case is R (AK) v Secretary of State for the Home...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! I am writing this a little early so the usual caveat applies if I have missed out something big that happened Monday morning. On Wednesday morning I recorded the podcast with Barry (yes he’s back!) and asked where was the legal aid increase...
Following last week’s letter from the Home Secretary commissioning two reviews from the Migration Advisory Committee, one on salary requirements including discounts, and the second on the temporary shortage list, we now have the response from Professor Brian Bell giving more details of how the committee intends to proceed. The...
The immigration skills charge is an additional fee payable by a sponsoring employer when a certificate of sponsorship is issued prior to a worker beginning their employment. The sponsor is required to pay the immigration skills charge and cannot pass liability onto the sponsored worker. Doing so could risk revocation...
Before an employer can sponsor workers, they must first obtain a sponsor licence from the Home Office. To be eligible for a sponsor licence, a prospective sponsor must be a genuine business or organisation operating lawfully in the UK. The Home Office guidance deems this to be met from the...
Time for your June round up of all things Free Movement – and Barry is back! In this month’s episode both Sonia and Barry divulge some rather niche interests, while discussing the second latest (!!) statement of changes, the Migration Advisory Committee’s review into the minimum income requirement, the legal...
The Public Accounts Committee has published its report on skilled worker visas, finding that changes such as the expansion of the route to social care were made without a full assessment of potential impacts and risks, including the exploitation of workers. The committee says that it will be important for...
Our monthly update course is available to Free Movement members. It is based on the articles we’ve published over the last month and on our immigration law update podcast. If you are not already a member, you can join here and access not just this course but all of our...
Time for your June round up of all things Free Movement – and Barry is back! In this month’s episode both Sonia and Barry divulge some rather niche interests, while discussing the second latest (!!) statement of changes, the Migration Advisory Committee’s review into the minimum income requirement, the...
Fordham J has given some guidance on handling issues relating to the e-filing of judicial review applications in the Administrative Court, stating that this may be something the Administrative Court User Group wishes to consider, or further online guidance provided. The case is R (BLV) v Secretary of State for...
The Court of Appeal has said that where an application for an EEA family permit as a Zambrano carer under the Immigration (European Economic Area Regulations) 2016 was made before the end of the transitional period (31 December 2020), then the Home Office should still consider and decide that application...
Yesterday the Ministry of Justice announced that immigration legal aid rates will be increased “as soon as operationally possible”. Overall spending on immigration legal aid will increase by 30%. There doesn’t seem to be much more detail at this stage, apart from the following: The Government ran a consultation on...
The English language requirement can be generously viewed as the Home Office’s response to the biblical Tower of Babel story: society is undermined by its people’s inability to speak the same language. But as anyone who has ever had the misfortune to read Home Office guidance can attest, it is...
The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has dismissed an appeal against the refusal of the Immigration Advice Authority to register the appellant as a level 1 adviser in the immigration category. The case is Ajay Omnath Kapoor v Immigration Advice Authority [2025] UKFTT 809 (GRC). The appellant had previously been...
Climate change, disasters and corporate driven-environmental harms are forcing communities to move – both within countries and across borders. Displacement linked to the impacts of climate change is no longer a speculative concern – it is a legal, social, and humanitarian reality that is increasingly shaping patterns of mobility –...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Another week, another newly surfaced problem with eVisas. Today it was reported that the Security Industry Authority (“an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Home Office”) is not accepting eVisas as official ID for its licence application process. To state the obvious,...
As trailed in the immigration white paper but mysteriously absent from last week’s statement of changes, the skilled worker route is being overhauled with a view to far fewer people being able to use it. Yes that’s right, a mere week after the last lot, we have yet another statement...
The Crime and Policing Bill is currently awaiting second reading in the House of Lords and it introduces a number of new measures which expand police powers. BID is concerned that these new powers risk unfair deportation of people with limited leave to remain for minor offences. One part of...
Immigration and asylum law in particular is a complex and fast moving area, and it is crucial that lawyers stay up to date to best serve their clients. It is also a regulatory requirement that must be met annually. There is no longer a minimum hours requirement for continuous professional...
The High Court has rejected a judicial review challenging the Home Secretary’s refusal to consider an application made outside the rules. In doing so, the court rejected the argument that the Home Secretary should create a specific application form for leave outside the rules under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance...
In this briefing we look at the existing and developing mechanisms for support for migrant victims in the modern slavery system. We also recommend looking at “A guide to assisting survivors of modern slavery in the asylum system” produced by ATLEU and the Asylum Support Appeal Project in partnership with...
The High Court found a reasonable grounds (first stage) decision in a trafficking case to be unlawful because the Home Office decision maker adopted a restrictive and rigid approach to the definition of forced labour. The case is SAC v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1400...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Just spotted this – a challenge has gone in on the pause to settlement applications from Syrian refugees. I have been saying for a while that I think this is where the stronger challenge is with the pause, given the different test at...
A new statement of changes to the immigration rules (HC: 836) has been published today and before your adrenaline gets going I can tell you that unlike some of the more recent ones, there are no immediate changes being made. As ever, the explanatory memorandum is a useful read but...
Recently a Ukrainian national got in touch with me to raise concerns about mass refusals of asylum/humanitarian protection claims within the community. As I have been predicting for a while, he told me that many people have been driven into the asylum system through a fear of being forced to...
The Upper Tribunal has upheld a decision to reject an application for indefinite leave to remain as invalid because the wrong box was ticked by the applicant’s lawyer at the outset, meaning the wrong application form was used. An opportunity provided by the Home Office to rectify the error before...
The 11th edition of the essential Macdonald’s Immigration Law & Practice has been published. The first edition was published by the late, great, Ian Macdonald QC in 1983 and the most recent edition in June 2021. Updating this comprehensive handbook is a huge and important undertaking, the general editors for...
The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small...
Today the government has published the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill which will mean that a deprivation order removing a person’s British citizenship remains in effect even if the person has successfully appealed, while any further appeals can be or are being made by the Home Secretary....
Over and over again we hear that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country the reach. There are variations on the theme. Genuine refugees claim asylum in the first safe country. Refugees should or even must claim asylum in the first safe country. The asylum seekers coming to...
On the face of it, refugee status and humanitarian protection seem like two sides of the same coin. Both are a form of international protection granted to a person in need. Both result in a grant of five years’ permission to remain in the UK on a pathway to settlement...
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Two things happened last week that were covered by the media in a way that was incredibly annoying to anyone who values accuracy (hi!). The first happened on Tuesday morning and prompted an incredibly early start to my day as I thought I...
The High Court in Northern Ireland has refused leave (known as permission in England and Wales) for a judicial review challenging the pause on Syrian asylum claims, saying that the grounds were “unarguable”. The case is JR332, Re Application for Judicial Review [2025] NIKB 33. The applicant is a Syrian...
The current immigration rules on when a refugee may be joined by family members — often referred to as refugee family reunion — are woefully outdated and simply do not reflect the nature of modern families. Reform is long overdue. But in the meantime, it is feasible to make successful...
Asylum lawyers like me tend to focus on just one clause of the Refugee Convention: the definition of a refugee. This is the gateway to formal recognition as a refugee and is therefore of vital importance to any person seeking asylum. From this definition, set out at Article 1A(2) of...
The Upper Tribunal has made a declaration that the Home Office’s delay in considering further submissions was unlawful, after the Home Office “voided” the further submissions without telling the applicant. The case is R (D1527) v Secretary of State for the Home Department JR-2025-LON-001018. The applicant is an Egyptian national...
The Court of Appeal has issued a welcome corrective to the tribunals, telling them not to impose an “unrealistic evidential burden” on asylum applicants who claim that they are subject to monitoring by their home government. The case is MH (Bangladesh) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025]...
The latest tribunal quarterly statistics show that the immigration tribunal’s total appeals backlog stood at 90,389 cases as at 31 March 2025. At the same time the previous year it was 50,332 cases. The current appeals backlog consists of: 50,976 outstanding asylum appeals, up from 27,133 at the same point...
The latest report from Dr Jo Wilding, “No Access to Justice 2” looks at the continuing immigration and asylum legal aid crisis. This is an update to her 2022 report and includes a region by region analysis of demand and provision. In the 2022 report, London was the only region...
