TF and MA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] CSIH 58 is a recent Court of Session (Inner House) decision which addresses two key themes within the immigration and asylum sphere. Firstly, the extent to which adverse credibility finding ...

In 1985, immigration solicitor Sheona York read an article in the Guardian about a new technology for proving someone’s identity. She called the inventor, Professor Alec Jeffreys, at the University of Leicester to see whether this “DNA tes ...

Claiming asylum is an important human right backed by the United Nations Refugee Convention and recognised by countries around the world. In order to make this right a reality in practice, countries like the UK have set up systems by which people must ...

The recently published UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group report Still Falling Short examines the Home Office’s decision-making in  asylum applications from LGBTQI+ people. The report is a qualitative study of mainly lesbian, gay and bisexual c ...

In PK (Draft evader; punishment; minimum severity) Ukraine [2018] UKUT 241 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal has refused to protect a Ukrainian draft evader despite acknowledging that there is evidence that taking part in the conflict might involve committing ...

What’s another few months when you’ve been waiting two decades? For the past 20 years, a group of Iraqi and Syrian Kurds have been marooned on a British military base in Cyprus, recognised as refugees but denied settlement in the UK. In R ...

The Home Office now believes that the Sudanese country guidance cases should no longer be followed, based on a change of country circumstances. Its “lines to take” now argue that while non-Arabs are likely to be at risk in the Darfur regio ...

The Court of Justice of the European Union has taken a strict approach to time limits on take back requests imposed by the Dublin III Regulation. In case C‑213/17 X v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, the court ruled that Italy had respon ...

AAH (Iraqi Kurds – internal relocation) (CG) [2018] UKUT 212 (IAC) is a recent country guidance case on the availability of internal relocation for Iraqi Kurds to the Iraqi Kurdish Region. This case updates some of the guidance contained in AA ( ...

Nour Taleb runs the Sweety House, the latest popular Syrian business to open in Edinburgh. Mr Taleb fled Syria in 2012, arriving in the UK as a refugee under the government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme in 2016. A similar tale ...

There are a considerable number of asylum claims in the UK by young Afghan boys and men. The number should not be overstated, though. The latest immigration statistics show that Afghans are still outside the top five nationalities claiming asylum in t ...

“I would not open windows into men’s souls,” said Elizabeth I. But that is exactly the task facing those charged with deciding asylum claims based on religion or belief. Is a professed conversion to another religion, or to non-religion, sincere ...

On Friday 15 June, a new statement of changes was laid. Rather atypically, many of the changes are welcome news! All changes will come into force on 6 July 2018, although some only apply to applications made after that date. As always, practitioners a ...

Most unaccompanied child asylum seekers and refugees will be “children in need” for the purposes of the Children Act 1989. So the issue of whether or not local authorities have properly exercised their duties to provide accommodation and care freq ...

In ZN (Afghanistan) and KA (Iraq) [2018] EWCA Civ 1059, the Court of Appeal considered the tricky issue of costs in public law cases, in a scenario where the appeals were withdrawn following consent orders. The main points The judgment is interesting ...

Today the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down a decision in the case of C-647/16 Adil Hassan v Prefet du Pas-de-Calais concerning the Dublin III Regulation. The press summary is here. Practitioners will be well aware how intricate and ...

The Court of Appeal in Youssef v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 933 decided that the appellant was disqualified from refugee status because he had incited terrorist acts in general. There was no requirement for there to ...

In Secretary of State for the Home Department v MA (Somalia) [2018] EWCA Civ 994 the Court of Appeal grappled with the thorny question of what issues are relevant when a decision-maker is assessing the cessation of refugee status under the Qualificat ...

Safira,* who identifies as a lesbian woman, grew up in Nigeria. Because of her sexual identity, Safira’s family members abused her, physically and psychologically, in an attempt to “cure” her of what they considered “demonic tendencies”. Her ...

In the case of C-353/16 MP v Secretary of State for the Home Department, decided yesterday, the Court of Justice of the European Union has found that A person who has in the past been tortured in his country of origin is eligible for ‘subsidiary pro ...

The Upper Tribunal has in AS (Safety of Kabul) Afghanistan CG [2018] UKUT 118 (IAC) given new country guidance in cases concerning removal to Kabul. The new guidance covers two main areas of concern. The first is the risk, on return to Kabul, from the ...

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 ...