David Bolt, the new Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, started work on 1 May 2015. It is now quite some time since John Vine stepped down, and since any report was published. The last sentence of the announcement rather jumps out: Prior to 2001, for 25 years Mr Bolt...
I’m voting Labour today, and I will be spending the day out campaigning for my local candidate, Sarah Sackman. No party is perfect and the last Labour Government was deeply flawed in many ways, particularly in its approach to asylum issues. I resigned my long standing membership of the party...
Rights of appeal under the Immigration Act 2014 are only available in refugee cases and if ‘the Secretary of State has decided to refuse a human rights claim made by [the person]’ (amended section 82 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002). This will clearly require a human rights claim...
Filmmaker Don McVey has put together an excellent documentary on the spouse minimum income rule and the devastating effect it is having on affected families and children. It is heartbreaking. Don does a great job of drawing out how arbitrary the minimum income threshold is, how biased it is against...
The treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans asylum seekers has been notoriously poor for many years. In 2010, my organisation, the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, exposed that 98-99% of gay and lesbian asylum seekers had been refused asylum and told to go back, often to violently homophobic...
The ninth edition of Macdonald’s Immigration Law and Practice is now available for purchase. Fully updated with material on the Immigration Act 2014 and much, much more, this is an essential text for any serious immigration lawyer. You can pick up a copy here (affiliate link, and also I am...
Welcome to the March 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month I cover legislative updates on appeal and visitors, a few asylum issues and then some Points Based System and other cases. The material is all drawn from the March 2015 blog posts on Free Movement....
Some new Policy Notices have emerged thanks to the Freedom of movement in the EU blog. They cover disclosure of notes taken in marriage interviews, further confirmation that EU law application forms are optional, updates to the Modernised Guidance on various EU law issues and on Comprehensive Sickness Insurance. Most mind-numbingly astonishing...
The word “hopeless” appears five times in the determination of R (on the application of Rashid) v Secretary of State for the Home Department IJR [2015] UKUT 190 (IAC). While the judge remains fairly cool she was clearly irritated with Counsel. Much of the case is devoted to salvaging some...
The February immigration update course is now available with a 10 question multiple choice quiz. For the full list of available CPD courses, including the new course on social media for lawyers, see the courses page. Available to Tier 1 members only: click here to find out about the current 50%...
In a useful case the Upper Tribunal addresses one of the “mind the gap” differences between the Immigration Rules and the requirements of human rights law. There is a growing body of case law that recognises that the two bodies of law are not, contrary to the Home Office position,...
The Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal in the case of MP (Sri Lanka) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 829 and allocated reference number UKSC 2015/0027. Progress can be tracked on the Supreme Court website but the case does not yet appear there. It will be very interesting...
UPDATED The appointment of Fiona Lindsley, Nadine Finch and Melanie Plimmer as salaried judges of the Upper Tribunal has been announced today. All three are well known in the immigration law community and their appointment is fantastic news. We will miss Nadine horribly at Garden Court Chambers but wish her the...
The latest from the Upper Tribunal on the statutory presumptions on human rights cases introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 is the case of Chege (section 117D : Article 8 : approach : Kenya) [2015] UKUT 165 (IAC). The determination seems very deeply flawed indeed because that it is based on the...
The major changes to rights of appeal and removal powers wrought by the Immigration Act 2014 took full effect on 6 April 2015, although with some transitional provisions for existing cases. This blog post, based on the second edition of my Immigration Act 2014 ebook, examines and attempts to explain...
Garden Court Chambers is running a free seminar on The Immigration Act 2014: Appeals, Administrative Review and Judicial Review. The provisions represent a major change, with fewer migrants entitled to appeal and on far fewer grounds. The commencement and transitional provisions are unhelpfully complex. Three expert practitioners will guide you through the...
Right to citizenship seminar at Garden Court Chambers with Laurie Fransman QC and Adrian Berry, Thursday 23 April 2015, 18:30 – 20:00. Part of our Fundamental Rights series, our panel of expert immigration and nationality lawyers will cover the following topics: Citizenship as a human right Deprivation of citizenship and...
A new “health surcharge” was introduced for all new applications for entry clearance or leave to remain made on or after 6 April 2015. The charge is £150 per year for students and £200 per year for all other types of application. A charge is payable for each dependent as well...
A full second edition of my Immigration Act 2014 ebook is now available. It includes the new commencement provisions on removals and appeals, examples to aid understanding and links to the various new Home Office policies. A great deal of work has gone into the second edition and Free Movement members...
Interesting snippet I just spotted while trawling appeals policies for a major update of the Immigration Act 2014 ebook and course: A person who has an appeal pending can make a fresh application for entry clearance in the same or any other category. There is no requirement for a person...
Great to see Chelvan’s profile on the I Am An Immigrant website. He is an inspirational campaigning lawyer and academic and occasional contributor to Free Movement. The campaign has generated a huge amount of interest and publicity and I’m proud to have been able to support and promote it.
...The Office of the Children’s Commissioner is seeking evidence on the impact of the family migration rules on children. You can download the full questionnaire here from JCWI or go through these questions to express an interest in helping: The consultation closes on 1 September 2015.
...In a short but powerful judgment the Court of Appeal has clarified the approach to continued detention on the basis that removal can be effected within a reasonable time. The decision is also important for the analysis of case law concerning detention where the prospects of effecting return depend upon...
A new pre action protocol for judicial review applications came into effect on 6 April 2015. Rather unfortunately, it was not published. You can now find it here (h/t @NearlyLegal). The judicial review pre action protocol applies in both the Administrative Court and the Upper Tribunal: The Upper Tribunal Immigration and...
In Nguyen (Anti-Trafficking Convention: respondent’s duties) [2015] UKUT 170 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal accepts what I had thought was the well established point that the Home Office has duties to historical victims of trafficking: The duties of a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human...
In the case of Xue v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 825 (Admin) the Home Office claimed that the court had no “superhero” jurisdiction and could not or should interfere with the right of the Secretary of State indefinitely to detain a foreign national. Happily for the...
Welcome to the February 2015 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. For February I cover some tribunal, High Court and Court of Appeal cases, some quickly and some in more detail, I mention some upcoming legislative changes that will be covered in more detail next month and some practice points. The...
Rather than write my own detailed piece on the Supreme Court’s judgment in Pham v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 19 I’m mainly going to refer you an excellent piece by Simon Cox on the Open Societies Foundation website: Case Watch: UK Supreme Court Backs Government Rejection...
Anyone working with child asylum seekers — lawyers, civil servants, judges — should read UNHCR’s new publication The Heart of the Matter: Assessing Credibility when Children Apply for Asylum in the European Union. It came out a couple of weeks ago but looking for it just now to update the Free Movement...
James Brokenshire, until the dissolution of Parliament last week the Minister of Immigration [EDIT: I am reliably informed that he is still the Minister – thanks go to Alison Harvey!], has confirmed that the recent tightening of policy on granting British citizenship was not aimed at refugees. The change of...
The image above is of a Californian doctor sobbing outside the hospital building having lost the 19 year old patient on whom he was operating. It has gone viral on social media. It was also picked up in The Guardian in an interesting article by Deborah Orr: The image of the...
Case of R (On the Application Of Islam) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 312 (27 March 2015) on Edgehill, Halumudeen, Singh etc etc: More Edgehill, Halumudeen, Singh 9/7/12 hokey pokey bollocks. How does this stuff reach the Court of Appeal? Strewth. http://t.co/BaeBUzP4dv — Colin...
A successful judicial review claim by a trafficking victim is reported at R (on the application of FM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 844 (Admin) (26 March 2015). Philip Mott QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge found that the Home Office had unlawfully refused...
The Conservative Party is pledging radically to expand out of country appeals to any migrant with no leave after the election. The Daily Mail piece is clearly well informed and includes some examples that can only have come from a Home Officer brief. Given that appeals will only be on...
