The Home Office has belatedly published the reports of the Independent Family Returns Panel for 2012 to 2014 and 2014 to 2016. Home Office responses have been published in parallel. Why the Home Office was withholding from publication for so long the 2012-14 report is something of a mystery. The panel is made...
Welcome to the October 2016 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This episode I start with the abortive increase in fees for immigration appeals and changes to appeals to the Court of Appeal, cover new types of online applications available and then some EU law issues, move on to...
The Court of Appeal has in effect endorsed the Home Office practice of issuing “supplementary” decision letters during judicial review litigation to try and make good defects in the original refusal. The case is Caroopen & Myrie v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 1307....
Important new determination from President McCloskey on the best interests of children in human rights cases where the statutory considerations apply: Kaur (children’s best interests / public interest interface) [2017] UKUT 00014 (IAC). The official headnote: (1) The seventh of the principles in the Zoumbas code does not preclude an...
Two new Home Office policies were published today: Criminal investigations (Immigration Enforcement) Liability to administrative removal (non-EEA): consideration and notification The one on administrative removal lools particularly important. It covers categories for administrative removal (overstayers, workers in breach, etc), types of illegal entry, no evidence of lawful entry cases, liability...
EU citizens wanting to apply for proof of their right of permanent residence in the UK currently have to cut through spools of red tape. The unnecessary bureaucracy defeats some, who are wrongly being told by the Home Office that they must leave the UK after years and years of lawful residence. It...
President McCloskey has blasted the “cavalier and unprofessional” lawyers for both claimants and the Home Office in his latest determination of Shabir Ahmed and others (sanctions for non – compliance) [2016] UKUT 00562 (IAC). The case is that of four men convicted in 2012 of child sex offences in Rotherham who were...
Changes since the last version of the guidance: updated to include reference to criminality and delay when considering permission to work applications improved guidance on applying for permission to work to provide clarity for claimants on what is expected updated information about the difference between working for a voluntary organisation...
The same report goes on to reveal that the Home Office is no longer even attempting to monitor the outcomes of the “papers, please” Right to Rent scheme. This is despite uncharacteristically strong criticism of this failure from David Bolt, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, in his review...
The latest triennial review of the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) has been published by the Home Office. The organisation will not be abolished and will continue as a non departmental public body at arms length from Government. There is also a very brief Ministerial statement. The main...
Welcome to the September 2016 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This episode I start with a few EU law and process issues, cover the relevant higher court and Upper Tribunal cases for September and end with some policy updates. The material is all drawn from the September 2016 blog...
The President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has found that the Home Office abused its power in forcing a college to expel a student and deliberately depriving him of a statutory right of appeal. The case has now been reported as R (on the application of Mohibullah ) v Secretary of...
I am looking to recruit a part time self employed research assistant or assistants to help with research and writing for Free Movement. Some work would be background research and likely to be uncredited. Some work would be in the form of drafts of content for the site and would...
The Home Office and Entry Clearance Officer guidance on visit visa cases has been reissued and updated. Changes are as follows: Visit visa applications from persons with Right of Abode to be refused – Page 3 Clarified that evidence is required when refusing on mandatory grounds – Page 8 Example...
Sir David Metcalf has today (5 January 2017) been named as the first Director of Labour Market Enforcement to oversee a government crackdown on exploitation in the workplace. Sir David, who was chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee until August 2016, will set the strategic priorities for the: Gangmasters and Labour...
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has revealed that it upheld 75% of complaints made against the Home Office and Border Force last year: Incorrect decisions, delays and wrong advice are the top reasons for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman upholding the highest proportion of complaints about the Home...
If the case of Tarakhel was considered another body blow to the Dublin system, the recent Court of Appeal case of NA (Sudan) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWCA Civ 1060 has picked up the Dublin system up off the ropes for another round. The...
2016 has not been a good year for free movement the concept. Non coincidentally, it has been a busy year on Free Movement the website. The response of migrants and their families to harsh rules that would break them apart is not simply to abandon their hopes and abandon the...
On 13 December 2016, the Grand Chamber handed down its much-awaited decision in Paposhvili v Belgium (Applcn No. 41738/10). The decision: (1) clarifies, widens and provides guidance on the circumstances in which an alien suffering from a serious illness can resist removal under art 3 ECHR; and (2) gives rise...
The University of Oxford based Migration Observatory has published a new report on young migrants. It reads a little like the introductory sequence to The Six Million Dollar Man. The key points: Migrants tend to be young when they arrive, typically as young adults coming for work or study, or...
Following the narrow “yes” vote in the Early Christmas Referendum, Theresa May announced today that the United Kingdom will unilaterally change the date of Christmas in 2017. The Prime Minister stated in a speech at Santa’s Grotto inNicholsons, Maidenhead that “Christmas means Christmas” and that despite a close result she will trigger...
A new tribunal case on EU deportations. The headnote: Neither a decision to make a deportation order nor a notice of intention to make a deportation order triggers the two year period specified in regulation 24(5) of the EEA Regulations. The two year period begins upon the making of the...
A child can be at risk of persecutory harm contrary to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in circumstances where a comparably placed adult would not be at such a risk. Source: JA (child – risk of persecution : Nigeria) [2016] UKUT 560 (IAC) (24 November 2016)
...The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a new report on the Home Office approach to sham marriages. The report is critical of the change in approach brought about by new powers conferred on officials by the Immigration Act 2014: The inspection found that the initial implementation of...
In an interesting development on the validity of proxy marriages, the Home Office has taken the view in a Court of Appeal case that the Upper Tribunal’s approach in Kareem [2014] UKUT 24 is wrong in law. The Court of Appeal has declined to simply overrule Kareem on this basis, though, and...
Interesting letter from the Immigration Minister to the Home Affairs Select Committee setting out the Home Office approach to and strategy on the ETS litigation. Source: Written evidence – Letter from Robert Goodwill MP, Minister for Immigration, to the Chair of the Committee, 15 December 2016
...In a new case on dental age assessments, the tribunal has ordered that a young asylum seeker to undergo a dental x-ray and age assessment. If he refuses, his court case will be struck out. The case also gives general guidance on the correct approach to be followed in similar...
The Home Office has reviewed operation of the cruel Immigration Rules for Adult Dependent Relatives such as parents or grandparents introduced in July 2012. They are considered to be meeting their policy objectives and will not be changed, the review has concluded. Senior policy adviser Clive Peckover writes: As the...
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published a new report into the quality of legal service provided to asylum seekers. The full report can be found here. The report is broadly positive: Solicitors and law firms are generally serving asylum seekers well, we have found, although there remains room for improvement. However,...
The Supreme Court has given judgment in the case of Mirza v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKSC 63. The case concerned the effect of section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 as amended and whether it extends leave where an applicant for leave is found later...
Following hot on the heels of the hardline British Future report on the rights of EU nationals in the UK after Brexit, the House of Lords EU Justice Committee has today published a report on the same subject. It is a far more comprehensive and comprehending piece of work and...
Nine people are convicted of an immigration fraud linked to English language tests used for student visas. Source: Nine convicted over student visa English test plot – BBC News Meanwhile, Nick Armstrong of Matrix Chambers has been involved in an interesting judicial review case also involving the ETS language testing...
Free Movement has reported twice on immigration removal centres (IRCs) blocking access to websites informing detainees of their legal rights. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised Haslar IRC two years ago for having the websites of Bail for Immigration Detainees and Amnesty International blocked. What are "prohibited categories" of websites in...
A hardline report chaired by prominent Leave campaigner Gisela Stewart into the status of EU nationals in the UK has recommended a cut off date for new arrivals from the EU, likely to be April 2017, and a massive registration programme for existing EU residents. EU citizens arriving after the cut...
The Points Based System is notoriously complex and indecipherable. Initially I believe this was simply incompetence on the part of Home Office officials unable to communicate in plain English and ill equipped to design to and then adapt to the constantly shifting requirements of Ministers. My view is that the...
Jean Lambert MEP has published a factsheet on the legal rights of EU nationals currently living in the UK. Written by Colin Yeo, barrister at Garden Court Chambers, it answers several of the most commonly-asked questions in these uncertain times following the vote to leave the European Union (‘Brexit’)....
GUIDELINES ON INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NO. 12: Claims for refugee status related to situations of armed conflict and violence under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees and the regional refugee definitions UNHCR issues these Guidelines on International Protection pursuant to its mandate,...
An employment tribunal held that an employee was fairly dismissed after failing to produce evidence of his right to work in the UK. Interesting, if depressing. Hopefully this will be going up to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, if only so that we can see the law and reasoning behind it...
The latest quarterly immigration statistics show that immigration to the UK for the year ended June 2016 was 650,000, the highest level ever recorded. Net migration stood at 335,000, just below the previous high of 2015. An estimated 49,000 more British citizens left the UK than returned from abroad. You can...
