The case of AB, R (On the Application Of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 383 has unusual facts, but an unsurprising conclusion: the Home Office cannot grant asylum to someone who is not in the UK. The background is n ...

The Court of Appeal in Tanvir Babar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 329 dealt with the application of Immigration Rule 276B. The court highlighted the tensions between the Home Office policy, the application of the Immigra ...

Asylum seekers routinely share their most sensitive information with the Home Office in order to support their asylum claims, write Daniel Carey and Zac Sammour. They do so in good faith, trusting that the Home Office will treat that information wi ...

Countries are being declared safe for refugees to return to, but only if they have criminal records, a new report by the government’s immigration inspector suggests. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, found t ...

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has urged the Home Office to fundamentally overhaul the country of origin information it gives to officials making asylum decisions. David Bolt’s latest report, published today, says tha ...

When an asylum seeker returns to an EU member state they’ve previously been transferred from under the Dublin III regulation, how should their application for international protection be processed? The Court of Justice of the European Union in C-160 ...

In R (RSM (A Child)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 18 the Court of Appeal considered the ambit of Article 17 of the Dublin III regulation, the so-called “discretionary clause”, and found it to be narrow indeed. The c ...

In today’s case of C‑473/16 F v Bevándorlási és Állampolgársági Hivatal, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that national authorities may not prepare and use psychologists’ expert reports to assess the sexual identi ...

In A v Switzerland (application no. 60342/16), the European Court of Human Rights considered the risk of ill treatment on return to Iran for Christian converts. In this case the applicant had converted to Christianity whilst seeking asylum in Swi ...

The UK and France have agreed a new Sandhurst Treaty on the management of their shared border. We’ve heard the spin from Macron and May, but what has actually been agreed and will it have a life after Brexit? Given how central the issue of asylu ...

Asylum support must provide a safe place to live and enough money for people to look after themselves and their families. An extra 80p a week doesn’t cut it, writes Hannah Cooper, senior research and policy officer at Refugee Action. People see ...

Last month the Court of Appeal considered the rules governing deportation of foreign criminals. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department v SC (Jamaica) [2017] EWCA Civ 2112, which concerned a Jamaican national originally granted asylum ...

Recent statistics on asylum grants to gay people represent a breakthrough rather than a breakdown in the system – acting as a sword, rather than shield, in advancing protection of queer refugees, argues S Chelvan of No5 Barristers Chambers. Long ...

The refugee definition Engagement of the CJEU with asylum issues Since the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union was expanded to include asylum matters, we have a fairly steady rise in the number of judgments on these issues. Most ...

Selective participation in CEAS Participation in the Common European Asylum System is not necessarily “all or nothing”, nor does it absolutely require membership of the EU. Even within the EU, involvement in CEAS is also selective in some cases. H ...

The issue of asylum and the refugee crisis in Europe played a very significant part in the debate on Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union in the run up to the Brexit referendum in June 2016. Many commentators consider that the issue ...

A new report helps fill some of the gaps in our understanding of the situation facing young men sent back to Afghanistan, writes Maya Pritchard of Asylos. While we await the outcome of AS (Afghanistan), the country guidance case currently before the U ...

New research helps practitioners identify best practice in representing female asylum seekers writes Debora Singer MBE, Senior Policy Adviser at Asylum Aid. What do women who have been through the asylum appeals process think of their legal representa ...

In HK, HH, SK and FK v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1871 the Court of Appeal found that asylum seekers could be returned to Bulgaria under the Dublin III Regulation. Removal would not violate the appellants’ Article ...

Further submissions are notoriously difficult to prepare. In PR (Sri Lanka), R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1946 the Court of Appeal has highlighted the need for focussed representations that mak ...

Upper Tribunal Judge Rintoul’s elegant, succinct summary of the law on age assessment, with which he opens the determination in R (AS) v Kent County Council (age assessment; dental evidence) [2017] UKUT 446, reminds us that pinpointing the age of a ...

Daniel Negassi v the United Kingdom (application no. 64337/14) was an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights with a complaint that the Home Office’s failure to grant Mr Negassi permission to work, while waiting for a decision on his asylum cla ...

In Bedford County Council v GE (Eritrea) [2017] EWCA Civ 1521 the Court of Appeal refused to overturn an age assessment simply because the local authority disagreed with judicial findings of fact. The judgment upheld the Administrative Court’s decis ...

Carles Puigdemont, erstwhile President de la Generalitat de Catalunya, fled Spain to Belgium this week following his parliament’s unilateral declaration of independence for Catalonia. Several of his ministers followed him into exile. A European ...

Majid Shiri, an Iranian national, arrived in Austria through Bulgaria in 2015. He made an asylum claim in Bulgaria in February of that year but claimed asylum in Austria the following month. The Austrian authorities asked Bulgaria to take Mr Shiri bac ...

Newcomers to the UK, whether they have immigration status or not, face formidable obstacles in accessing services such as housing or social security. This is a look at some common scenarios and how foreign nationals and their advisers deal with them. ...