Upper Tribunal Judge Craig takes a hardline stance against certification as clearly unfounded an Article 8 claim based on 19 years unlawful residence in the case of R (on the application of Singh and another) v Secretary of State for the Home Department IJR [2015] UKUT 134 (IAC): In this...
The full list of fees for immigration applications from inside and outside the UK applying from 6 April 2015 has been published. There are some hefty and puzzling increases: a 50% hike to £162 for visiting academics for some reason, a 57% increase to £592 for relatives of refugees, a 37% increase...
The High Court has found part of the Tier 1 Entrepreneur rules to be irrational in the case of R (on the application of Sabir & Ors) & Anor v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 264 (Admin). Despite succeeding on part of the challenge, though, the case...
UPDATED. Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules HC 1116 restricts Syrians with transit visas travelling to the UK from travelling through the UK and forces them to apply for a UK visa. The refusal rates for such visas have steadily increased during the conflict and now stand at 60%....
It is all change for rights and grounds of appeal on 6 April 2015. The previous range of grounds of appeal, which included section 84(1)(d)of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 — “that the appellant is an EEA national or a member of the family of an EEA national and the...
Normally, where an application for judicial review is made the first stage is for a judge to consider the grounds for judicial review and the acknowledgement of service and summary grounds of defence, then decide without holding a hearing whether permission should be granted. Lawyers commonly refer to this decision as...
Home Office Minister Lord Bates, responding to a question from Lord Green of Migration Watch on population control and the effect of the children of migrants: Lord Green: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest assessment of the impact of international migration on the population of the United...
The Court of Appeal condemns the complexity of the Points Based System in the case of Hossain & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 207. Lord Justice Beatson says at paragraph 30: The detail, the number of documents that have to be consulted, the...
Back in July 2014 I picked through the official Home Office quarterly statistics to plot the refusal rate for visa applications by Syrians to travel to the UK since 2010. There are many Syrians with family or other links to the UK who, perhaps despite or perhaps because of the...
In Blakesley v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2015] EWCA Civ 141 the Court of Appeal considered whether the UK Government is in breach of its international obligations towards refugees because of the lack of any provision to make back-payments of welfare benefits to those asylum seekers who,...
The Supreme Court last week rejected the Home Office’s attempt to keep Jamaica on the list of safe countries for asylum claims despite an estimated 10% of the population in Jamaica being subject to persecution because they are gay. This blow to the Home Office came the same week that the...
In a very welcome determination that comes a mere two years after the abolition of full rights of appeal for visitors but in the middle of the scything of full rights of appeal for everyone else, President McCloskey has turned his attention to the question of the relevance of compliance...
Last week highlighted the blight of the UK’s immigration detention camps. We saw the broadcast of two major Channel 4 investigations into conditions at the Yarl’s Wood and Harmondsworth immigration detention camps here in the UK. The reports were based in part on work by Corporate Watch, which I am...
Displaying genuineness: cultural translation in the drafting of marriage narratives for immigration applications and appeals by Natasha Carver is available for free during March. This is the abstract: This article uses Finch’s (2007) idea of ‘display’ to analyse the process in which autobiographical statements for family immigration applications and appeals are...
The Court of Appeal takes a strict approach to the interpretation of the Tier 1 Entrepreneur immigration rules on third party funding in the linked cases of Iqbal & Tank v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 169. This is in line with earlier Upper Tribunal cases.
...A new case from the Upper Tribunal (re-)interprets Chikwamba again: R (on the application of Idris) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (IJR) [2015] UKUT 95 (IAC) [EDIT: curiously identical to R (on the application of Thakral) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (IJR) [2015] UKUT...
The circumstances in which an asylum claim may be treated as abandoned by an applicant have been extended with effect from 27 February 2015. Statement of Changes HC 1025 has inserted new wording into paragraph 333C of the Immigration Rules so that it provides: An application may be treated as...
In Dube (ss.117A-117D) [2015] UKUT 90 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal expresses its opinions on the new Part 5A of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, introduced by the Immigration Act 2014. The Court of Appeal has already had its say in the case of YM (Uganda) v Secretary of State for...
Full appeal rights for applications under the Points Based System are being ended with effect from today, 2 March 2015, and for all other cases from 6 April 2015. The initial change applies to those who make an application on or after 2 March 2015 under Tiers 1, 2 or 5, and of course has […]
...I’m away next week (back for a hearing on Friday) and have scheduled a few blog posts to keep you reading in my absence. Watch this space for posts on the introduction of the Immigration Act 2014 appeals regime, the new rules for visitors, a new tribunal case on statutory...
Section 65, the one good bit of the Immigration Act 2014, is due to commence on 6 April 2015: see paragraph 4 of the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 4, Transitional and Saving Provisions and Amendment) Order 2015 (SI 2015/317). This provision more or less brings to an end the gender discrimination of the British […]
...In a recent determination, the President of the Upper Tribunal suggested that documents and submissions could be sent electronically to the tribunal in order to facilitate efficient justice: …parties and their representatives are strongly encouraged to communicate electronically with the Tribunal and, further, to seek confirmation that important communications and/or...
In January 2014, the Government introduced a number of measures aimed at restricting EEA migrants’ access to income-based JSA. A key change was the introduction of a statutory presumption that entitlement to income-based JSA (‘JSA(IB)’) would be limited to a period of three months (or six months for EEA nationals...
New country guidance case from the Upper Tribunal on the risk of persecution in Sri Lanka for the LGBT community: LH and IP (gay men: risk) Sri Lanka CG [2015] UKUT 00073 (IAC). Official headnote: (1) Having regard to the provisions of articles 365 and 365A of the Sri Lankan Penal Code,...
Where an application for leave to remain is made before 9 July 2012 but decided after that date, which Immigration Rules should apply to it? The answer, according to Court of Appeal in Singh v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 74, is the ‘old’ Rules,...
Two men are suspected of robbing a bank. Let’s call them Ken, a British national, and Boris, a non-British national. Boris arrived in the UK from somewhere in the Caucasus when he was 3, about 27 years ago. He holds Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK but, being a...
Job Title: Immigration Solicitor / Caseworker Salary: £25,000 to £30,000 depending on experience Closing date: 9am on 12 March 2015 Interviews: week commencing 16 March 2015 Website: www.atleu.org.uk Location: N7 7LL Contact: Jamila@atleu.org.uk ATLEU seeks a solicitor or barrister with experience of immigration and asylum...
Fascinating write up by The Register of the transition to GOV.UK, focussing on the immigration websites. The title gives a fair idea of the content: Inside GOV.UK: ‘CHAOS’ and ‘NIGHTMARE’ as trendy Cabinet Office wrecked govt websites: The most hated website of all time? A total disaster, basically. My own impression is...
From today a ‘leaky paywall’ has been installed on Free Movement. Guest users can view 20 blog posts per month, after which they will find they are unable to access blog content. Inspired by the Points Based System, there are now two tiers of membership: Tier 1 allows full access...
The UK is now blatantly obstructing EU free movement rights. As of 30 January 2015, a new Form EEA(FM) has been introduced for family members of EU nationals and of British citizens exercising Surinder Singh free movement rights. It is 129 pages long. The old version, called the EEA2, was...
Having just heard of a particularly shocking centre of life refusal of a Surinder Singh case, I thought I would start collating such refusals. I will try and work out a way to submit them to the European Commission, who are investigating the UK on this issue, and will use...
Interesting from Garden Court North: A recent decision of the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal (30.1.15) now means that the Workers Registration Scheme will have to be treated as having no legal effect in respect of its final two years’ of operation, potentially affecting the past and future social security,...
This piece started life as a practice note for welfare benefits cases but the same principles are transferrable to the immigration jurisdiction so we thought it would be helpful to share it here on Free Movement as well. If permission to appeal against a decision of a First-tier Tribunal in...
