Yesterday’s Sunday Times report that “Commonwealth soldiers don’t earn enough to bring families with them” will come as no surprise to immigration practitioners confronted on a daily basis with British citizen or settled clients who can barely meet the minimum income requirement. My experience of representing over a dozen Commonwealth veterans is that those...
Legal aid lawyers have never had an easy ride, but over the last few years since the introduction of CCMS and LASPO the iniquities and frustrations of working in this sector have grown exponentially. CCMS and LASPO may still be with us, but following two separate challenges to the operation...
The UK government has published an agreement on the residence rights of people from the three “EEA EFTA” countries if there is no Brexit deal. It covers citizens from the handful of nations that are not in the European Union, but are in the European single market: Norway, Iceland and...
Anybody over the age of ten who applies for registration or naturalisation as a British citizen needs to meet the so-called “good character requirement”. This is a mandatory requirement set out in the British Nationality Act 1981. Where a person is deemed by the Home Office not to be “of...
A major government review of legal aid proposes no significant changes in the immigration and asylum field. Despite evidence of the impact of cuts over the past five years, and the role that legal aid would have played in preventing the Windrush scandal, the Ministry of Justice has refused to...
Parliament’s human rights committee has recommended taking the decision to hold a migrant in immigration detention away from the Home Office. The group of MPs and Lords also call for an end to indefinite immigration detention, an idea that has gained political impetus recently with the possible support of the...
The KK brothers are two young men from Sri Lanka who claimed asylum in the UK off the back of claimed associations with the Tamil Tigers. Their asylum applications were rejected, by the Home Office and on appeal up through the immigration tribunals. In the Court of Appeal, their appeal...
There have been complaints about “the law’s delay” since William Shakespeare’s time. Given the under-resourcing of the court system and complexity of the laws and regulations (on immigration in particular) handed down to them, judges these days can be forgiven if they do not race through their decisions. In our time...
A BBC investigation has uncovered organised cheating on the “Life in the UK” test taken by migrants applying for settlement or citizenship. For a fee of up to £2,000, crooked consultants will feed the answers to those sitting the exam through a hidden earpiece. The story does not establish —...
The government recently published information about arrangements for EU citizens who move to the UK after the UK leaves the EU in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The proposals would mean that EU (and EEA) national children who move to the UK between the date the UK leaves the...
An immigration judge who tried to change his mind after granting asylum to a 16-year-old Iraqi boy has been overruled by the Upper Tribunal. The case is PAA (FtT: Oral decision – written reasons) [2019] UKUT 13 (IAC). Notes made by several different people present at a First-Tier Tribunal hearing...
In this research piece, the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association makes the case that the Home Office is subject to certain legal duties relating to the EU settled status automated data checks. These legal duties are: the public law duty to give reasons for the outcome of the checks where requested;...
A new report from the independent immigration inspector shines new light on how enforcement officials get their hands on data about migrants from other government departments. David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, also reveals that the department is building a centralised database of migrants’ legal status...
Given what I wish to say about the merits of this appeal, I place on record the fair way in which Mr Biggs pursued the appeal on behalf of the appellant. He did not appear below and has not pursued before this court technical arguments which dominated the written materials...
Migrants who would otherwise have no legal right to remain in the UK can appeal against their removal on the basis of their human rights. Usually they rely on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to private and family life. Article 8 is...
The UK government has confirmed what was suspected (and what the Home Office has hinted at in private talks): in the event of a no-deal Brexit, free movement will end on 29 March 2019. EU citizens arriving after this date face a new temporary system. The Immigration and Social Security...
The government’s preparations for Brexit include passing a law to remove the right of free movement for EU citizens. This right is ultimately derived from the EU treaties, but is also expressed in UK legislation, notably section 7 of the Immigration Act 1988, and in the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016...
The OISC, the regulator for immigration advisers who are not solicitors, barristers or CILEx qualified, has launched a new, light touch Brexit scheme. It will enable charities and not-for-profit organisations to qualify to give immigration advice on the EU Settlement Scheme without breaking the law. The scheme launches on 1...
The judgment in SSHD v SS (Jamaica) [2018] EWCA Civ 2817 continues a trend in which ‘foreign criminals’ who had been successful in their initial tribunal appeals against deportation have had those decisions overturned in the Court of Appeal. Free Movement has covered cases like this multiples times in recent...
The latest version of the Home Office’s Good character requirement guidance published on 14 January 2019 incorporates long-awaited new sections on children and refugees. There are also new sections on absolute and conditional discharges, detention and training orders, extremism, deportation orders, NHS debt, and failing to pay litigation costs. The...
The Home Office report on the second phase of its EU Settlement Scheme pilot revealed this week that nearly one in five applicants did not receive sufficient evidence of UK residence from automated checks alone. Of the 27,000 decisions issued during Phase 2 of the scheme some 4,500 applicants for...
The EU Settlement Scheme is now open for business. Almost all European Union citizens living in the UK who wish to stay here after Brexit must apply to it over the next couple of years. The only significant exceptions are: British citizens (who cannot apply for the scheme even if...
An integral part of the procedure of suing for damages is disclosure. Where Home Office disclosure is inadequate or incomplete, it is necessary to go on pressing for compliance with rule 31 of the Civil Procedure Rules and for specific disclosure. Those requiring a lesson in how to do so...
In the case of R (Akturk) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 297 (Admin), Mr Justice Holman had granted the claimant’s judicial review on traditional public law grounds of unfair decision making. He had also held that the abolition of the right of appeal in Turkish Ankara Agreement...
The High Court has ruled that the Home Office should have published its policy about transferring child asylum seekers to the UK from Calais earlier, but dismissed arguments about the substance of the policy. ZS v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 75 (Admin) concerns an unaccompanied...
Basically, neither the Isle of Man nor the Channel Islands are members of the European Union and therefore the spouse of an EU national who was working there could not benefit from EU free movement law. If only Rees-Mogg et al just moved there, perhaps we could just cancel the...
A reminder from the Court of Justice of the European Union that EU law still applies to the UK until Brexit actually happens. The Irish asylum authorities had asked, in effect, whether the triggering of Article 50 meant that it shouldn’t send asylum seekers across to the UK any more....
The domestic violence concession allows victims of domestic abuse access to public funds while they make an application for settlement. The High Court has now made clear that this concession only applies to those who are already on the route to settlement as a partner in the case of FA...
An immigration solicitor has been suspended indefinitely for forging a sick note for the tribunal. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) alleged that Sandia Kumari Pamma had not properly prepared for a child client’s asylum appeal and “decided to falsify a sick note that she had obtained from another client file”...
The Prime Minister has just announced that the £65 fee for EU citizens applying for post-Brexit settled status will be scrapped. Speaking in Parliament this evening (21 January 2019), Theresa May said: having listened to concerns from Members – and organisations like the “The 3 Million” group – I can...
The Home Office has released a report on its EU Settlement Scheme pilot phase, carried out late last year. The scheme, under which almost all EU citizens living in the UK must apply to stay here after Brexit, opens for most applicants today. The Home Office says that it made over...
The Immigration Rules should be redrafted and restructured in order to cut down on complexity, the Law Commission says. Launching a consultation on Simplifying the Immigration Rules today, the influential law reform body proposes major revisions to “provide a more logical structure, remove unnecessary repetitions and improve the drafting”. The regulations...
If there is no ten years continuous, lawful residence for the purposes of para 276B(i)(a) of the Immigration Rules, an applicant cannot rely on para 276B(v) to argue that any period of overstaying (for the purposes of 276B(i)(a)) should be disregarded. Para 276B(v) involves a freestanding and additional requirement over...
The High Court has allowed a Home Office appeal arguing that it is not necessarily unlawful to put British citizens in immigration detention. The judgment in Home Office v TR & Anor [2019] EWHC 49 (QB) concerned an eight-month-old baby detained with his mother for almost a fortnight despite lawyers for the...
Just flagging this up for those interested in asylum claims based on religious belief: C‑56/17 Fathi v Bulgaria. It is from late 2018 but the English language version was only recently published. The applicant was an Iranian who had converted to Christianity whilst still in Iran, or at least claimed to have...
For reasons that don’t appear to have been explained anywhere, at least not that I can find, the Home Office has made significant changes to the definition of a professional sportsperson. This is important because a prohibition on performing activities as a professional sportsperson is a condition of most UK...
In this case the Home Office repeatedly refused to accept that a child in France was related as claimed to his brother in the UK. First the Home Office failed to even contemplate taking DNA evidence, then eventually decided it would be illegal to do so in France anyway. Looking...
A former recruitment consultant has been given a 12-week suspended sentence for providing unregulated immigration advice. The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) prosecuted Namrata Thakkar, of Priory Gardens, Acton in London for continuing to give immigration advice despite no longer being covered by its regulation scheme. Ms Thakkar...
Since January 2015, 1,700 settlement applications from Tier 1 (General) migrants have been refused under paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules, primarily due to discrepancies between earnings declared to HMRC and to the Home Office at the time of making an application. During that time, the higher courts in England...
The co-founder of an immigration law firm has failed in a High Court bid to overturn Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal sanctions for professional misconduct. Mr Justice Lavender rejected the appeal of Malik Mohammed Nazeer, a solicitor of over 21 years’ call, against a £20,000 fine and practice restrictions imposed by the...
