During judicial review proceedings it has been disclosed that around 80 children were evacuated from Afghanistan and separated from their families and a new route is to be put in place to facilitate the reunion of these families shortly. The case is R (HR & Ors) v Secretary of State...
On 13 March 2024, in AUS v R [2024] EWCA Crim 322, the Court of Appeal quashed the 2010 conviction of a Somali citizen who was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for possession of a false identity document, contrary to s25(1) of the Identity Cards Act 2006. The applicant was...
The Court of Appeal has told the Ministry of Defence that they must reconsider whether an Afghan former Supreme Court judge is eligible for resettlement to the UK under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP). This was following an unsuccessful appeal by the Home Secretary and the Defence Secretary...
In recent months two cohorts of young people, those granted ‘Calais leave’ and those granted leave under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016, have begun to reach the end of five years’ limited leave to remain. The immigration rules currently provide a route to either further limited leave or...
The High Court has dismissed a judicial review raised by an Albanian national challenging a negative reasonable grounds (first stage) decision in his trafficking claim, finding that his employer did not have the intention to exploit him at the point of recruitment. The case is R (MT) v Secretary of...
This week the Sentencing Council published new draft sentencing guidelines for immigration offences within the Immigration Act 1971 and Identity Documents Act 2010. This includes offences expanded by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. Previously, there had been no formal guidelines for these offences. The draft guidelines have been published...
The Home Office has updated its guidance on voluntary returns, now re-named voluntary departures which now includes the possibility of sending those who agree to a safe third country. Although not explicitly named in the guidance, the intention is clearly to try to get people to agree to go to...
The Home Office has updated its “Allocation of asylum accommodation” guidance so that a list of people who were previously excluded from the Bibby Stockholm, Napier and the other ex-Ministry of Defence sites and from having to share a bedroom, can now be accommodated in these places. The euphemism being...
As the government’s Rwanda plan continues to court controversy, there is one area of their policy which by their measures could be seen to be succeeding: their efforts to stop Albanians from seeking refuge in the UK. Since 2019, the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre...
A guidance change made in July 2023 is affecting the ability of the new-born babies of refugees to obtain refugee status. This is an issue that affects a limited group of people, namely those who have been granted refugee leave for five years, and have a child born in the...
This is another successful challenge from a former Afghan judge who was unlawfully excluded from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme (ARAP). The case is MP1, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for Defence [2024] EWHC 410 (Admin). Background MP1 worked as a criminal defence lawyer...
This is our write up of the first of the Home Secretary’s recent dump of the much delayed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The one point I will make from the outset is that anyone who is working on Albanian claims should read the relevant...
A few days before the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a series of sweeping changes to the Ukraine schemes, giving just four hours’ notice of their implementation. Among the most significant changes are the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme, and a new...
Following a request from the Chairs of the Public Accounts and Home Affairs Committees, the National Audit Office has published a report on the costs to date of setting up the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda. The report also looks at the basis on which future costs would...
The latest immigration and asylum statistics have been published today. We have highlighted some of the interesting data below on asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, fee waivers and student and work routes. Page contentsAsylumInadmissibilityHomelessness of refugeesLarge drop in attendance by Home Office presenting officers at asylum appealsFee waiversEU Settlement SchemeStudentsWorkConclusion Asylum...
The Court of Appeal has gone to town on a First-tier Tribunal decision for the second time in as many weeks, this time allowing an appeal in an asylum claim from an Iranian national. The case is FA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ...
The Upper Tribunal has confirmed that the Home Secretary’s “Discretionary Leave” guidance, version 10, published on 16 March 2023 is unlawful to the extent that it excludes victims of trafficking who had been accepted by the Home Office to be a victim before 30 January 2023 and had, before that...
In the latest case challenging a decision made under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, the High Court has quashed the refusal decision on the basis that it was not supported by the evidence that had been provided in support of the application. The case is R (MA) v Secretary...
Although now largely eclipsed by the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022’s legacy will be its criminalisation of the act of seeking asylum in the UK. This article aims to give an overview of the changes to the law. Entry vs arrival By way of background,...
Having presumably learned from their much criticised mishandling of certain trafficking cases, the government published a statement yesterday stating that they have paused consideration of asylum claims from a certain group. Those affected are people who arrived on or after 1 January 2022 and who received a notice of intent before...
In a recent decision, Mohammed Ismael Suliman Abdullah for judicial review [2024] ScotCS CSOH_8, the Court of Session clarified that when a young person is seeking for a court to make a finding in relation to their age in Scotland, the action should be raised as a declarator of age...
A new version of the modern slavery statutory guidance was published in January, adding some protections for people who are at risk of being disqualified from trafficking support due to a public order offence. These changes were made following the Home Secretary’s concession of a judicial review challenge to guidance...
The government has launched a formal and anodyne-sounding “Consultation on reforms to social housing allocations“. It proposed a new series of bars to being allocated certain types of social housing, including a “UK connection test” which would be passed by being a British citizen, EEA citizen with equal treatment rights,...
The Home Secretary has been told by the Asylum Support Tribunal to re-make the decisions to stop the asylum support for three people who refused to move to the Bibby Stockholm barge. In doing so the tribunal also set out the process that should be followed for any such decisions...
The High Court has quashed decisions refusing leave to two journalists under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, known as ARAP. ARAP governs the circumstances in which the UK will grant leave to relocate to the UK to people who are at risk because they worked for or alongside UK...
The short answer is “yes, criminals can be denied refugee status.” There is a moral dimension to the Refugee Convention. But the criminal offence or offending must be particularly serious in nature. The offending or behaviour must be serious in nature because denying refugee status to a person and sending...
Gender-based violence is an umbrella term used to describe crimes including rape, domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Women who are fleeing gender-based violence from their country of origin and enter the UK can seek protection and claim asylum in the UK on this basis. As practitioners who...
On 13 December 2023 the Home Office announced that the rates of additional payments made to pregnant asylum seekers and children under 4 years old under Regulation 10A of the Asylum Support Regulations 2000 would be increased in line with the Department of Health and Social Care’s ‘Healthy Start’ scheme....
On 21 December 2023 the Immigration Minister published a letter setting out a concession for people who wish to make an application to the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route but who are currently in the UK without permission. A formal Ministerial Authorisation under the Equality Act 2010 has also...
The Immigration (Age Assessments) Regulations 2024 providing for the use of scientific age testing of children have come into force on 10 January 2024. A reminder of the response from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to these proposals: Evidence shows that using x-rays to determine age can...
The latest statistics from the Home Office break down the “flow” backlog (i.e. asylum claims made on or after 28 June 2022) into three separate groups. It is important to understand the different ways that they are treated, all of which involve the inadmissibility process in some way. Taking them...
In December 2022 the Prime Minister pledged to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog (claims made before 28 June 2022 when certain provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 were brought into force) by the end of 2023. Yesterday he claimed that this goal had been achieved, despite the government’s statistics...
A new version of the Home Office caseworker guidance “Withdrawing asylum claims” has been published, halving the amount of time people are given to explain reasons for missing an interview as well as setting out some additional steps for those who miss an interview. You can see a comparison of...
The Home Secretary must set out a lawful plan to completely end its use of hotels for accommodating lone refugee children. This is the conclusion of Judge Chamberlain in R (on the application of Kent County Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 3030 (Admin). The case...
The Safety of Rwanda (Immigration and Asylum) Bill has been published. There is no explanatory memorandum that I have seen, so I have done my best without that to explain what is in the Bill. As was the case with the Illegal Migration Bill, it begins with a declaration by...
The text of the UK’s new treaty with Rwanda to relocate people seeking asylum here to Rwanda instead has been published. For reference, the previous memorandum of understanding is here. Much of the treaty is just an expanded version of the memorandum, for example Article 11 in both deals with...
Changes have been made to the evidence refugees need to apply for Universal Credit and they should now be able to access this with their grant letter and Asylum Registration Card (ARC). We have previously covered the issue of Home Office changes to the notice period for stopping asylum support...
The asylum system seems finally to have turned a corner: the asylum backlog is starting to fall. The backlog is the single most important problem with the asylum system. Unlike arrivals, it is something the government can control. It creates huge financial costs for the taxpayer. It sucks money out...
The two statutory instruments that will pave the way for the use of x-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of children’s bones and teeth for the purpose of immigration control are on track to be approved by Parliament. This is despite concerns being raised around the inability for children...
