All Articles: Deportation

This was the central question which arose in the context of an unlawful detention claim, initially dismissed by the High Court in Johnson v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 3120 (KB) and then again in the recently reported appeal in Johnson v Secretary of State for...

12th March 2024
BY Nick Nason

You know it’s bad when there are so many mistakes in your determination that the appellate court judge decides he is only going to write “[sic]” next to the really big ones. And even worse when this shade was thrown by LJ Underhill, Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, who...

12th February 2024
BY Nick Nason

In Secretary of State for the Home Department v AA (Poland) [2024] EWCA Civ 18 the Court of Appeal has allowed the Home Secretary’s appeal in relation to an EEA national serious sex offender who had been in the UK for 15 years at the time of the Home Office...

8th February 2024
BY Nick Nason

Deportation proceedings pit the rights of the individual against those of the state, appointed guardian of the public interest. And as very clearly stated in primary legislation, the deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest. The law in this area is rent through with politics, shifting relentlessly with...

5th October 2023
BY Nick Nason

In BSG v R [2023] EWCA Crim 1041, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of a young Somali citizen, who suffered ‘a clear injustice’ after being ‘groomed, exploited and threatened’ [para 57] by a human trafficking gang in the UK. Background The applicant, “BSG”, had been convicted of possession...

21st September 2023
BY Colin Gregory

A claimant wrongly given a deportation order couldn’t benefit from the Windrush Compensation Scheme because his indefinite leave to remain had already lapsed, the High Court has held in R (on the application of Thompson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 2037 (Admin). The compensation scheme...

11th August 2023
BY Deborah Revill

The unduly harsh test in deportation cases has been subject to litigation for years and we have written about it in several articles, most recently in relation to the  Supreme Court case of HA (Iraq). The Court of Appeal has now published its judgment in Sicwebu v Secretary of State...

30th May 2023
BY Francesca Sella

Figures the Ministry of Justice was instructed to publish by the Office for Statistics Regulation show that just 8% of all deportation appeals lodged in 2020/21 were allowed on human rights grounds only. The one-off statistical release follows from the consultation on Dominic Raab’s proposed Bill of Rights Act, which...

21st November 2022
BY Colin Yeo

In what I calculate to be the fifth Supreme Court case addressing the meaning of the words used in Theresa May’s 2014 reforms of deportation law, the justices have rejected three linked Home Office appeals seeking to reinstate deportation orders. The previous cases were, in reverse order, SC (Jamaica), Sanambar,...

21st July 2022
BY Colin Yeo

The Upper Tribunal has rejected a challenge to the Article 8 compliance of the “deport first, appeal later” system despite previously having ordered the Home Office to bring the claimant back to the UK to ensure he had an effective appeal. The case is R (Watson) (s. 94B process; s....

28th June 2022
BY Alex Schymyck

The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal against the deportation of a Jamaican man who arrived in the UK aged ten. The case is SC (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 15. The judgment covers the application of the concept of internal relocation to risk of...

16th June 2022
BY Colin Yeo

When the Home Office is deporting someone for being convicted of a criminal offence, does it matter what country that conviction is from?   In practice, probably not. This seems to be the effect of the Court of Appeal’s decision in Gosturani v Secretary of State for the Home Department...

14th June 2022
BY Iain Halliday

Boris Becker, three-time Wimbledon champion and many people’s favourite German, has been sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for offences under the Insolvency Act 1986. Assuming Becker hasn’t acquired British citizenship, will he be deported following the conclusion of his custodial sentence? Automatic deportation The UK Borders Act...

10th May 2022
BY Nick Nason

Are you a “foreign criminal” if you were a British citizen when convicted and sentenced, but you’ve lost that citizenship by the time the Home Office decides to deport you? Yes, said the Court of Appeal in Zulfiqar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 492,...

22nd April 2022
BY Deborah Revill

The Supreme Court has circulated a list of cases that it has agreed to hear on appeal in the coming months. The list includes two liberalising deportation rulings from the Court of Appeal, HA (Iraq) and AA (Nigeria) which we hoped had finally put this vexed area of law to bed....

21st December 2021
BY Free Movement

The government has published its proposals for changing the Human Rights Act 1998. Not all the consultation questions will be of professional interest to immigration lawyers — for instance, there are sections on free speech and trial by jury — but some are specifically aimed at making it easier to...

14th December 2021
BY CJ McKinney

A 38-year-old man born in the UK without British citizenship cannot be deported to a country he has never even been to, the Upper Tribunal has decided. The case is Akinyemi v Secretary of State for the Home Department (unreported, DA/00574/2014). Remi Akinyemi was born in the UK in 1983. He...

7th December 2021
BY CJ McKinney

In MI (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1711, the Court of Appeal continues to unpick pre-HA (Iraq) deportation jurisprudence, here reversing the Upper Tribunal decision of Imran (Section 117C(5); children, unduly harsh : Pakistan) [2020] UKUT 83 (IAC). Our unimpressed write-up of the...

2nd December 2021
BY Nick Nason

The seriousness of a criminal offence is a key factor in deportation cases. It is generally judged with reference to the sentence given by the criminal courts. But what happens when that sentence has been discounted due to an early guilty plea? Last year, in HA (Iraq) v Secretary of...

22nd November 2021
BY Iain Halliday

In SM (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1566, the Court of Appeal has reiterated the correct approach to deportation appeals involving the potential separation of children from their parents. This unusual appeal involved a 52-year-old man, SM, who had been convicted of child cruelty...

9th November 2021
BY Nick Nason

Yes. Children can be removed from the UK as part of a family. They can, on paper, also be deported in their own right for criminal offending: the Home Secretary’s power of deportation under the Immigration Act 1971 is not limited to under-18s, and the Home Office has specific guidance...

8th September 2021
BY CJ McKinney

A Jamaican man who has been in the UK for over 20 years must be deported, the Court of Appeal has confirmed. The court held that Logan Reid, 51, had not established that his deportation would be “unduly harsh” on his teenage son, given the child’s otherwise stable home life....

10th August 2021
BY CJ McKinney

In Sanambar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 2 the Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal against deportation of an Iranian citizen who arrived in the United Kingdom aged nine in 2005. He had committed several knifepoint robberies as a teenager, between the ages of 14...

16th July 2021
BY Colin Yeo

Non-EU citizens can potentially have a deportation order against them revoked where they have acquired or could acquire rights as family members of EU nationals. Such opportunities will continue to be relevant to a specific group of people for some years to come. This post will try to unravel this...

30th June 2021
BY Samina Iqbal

When the Home Office want to deport an EU citizen who has committed a criminal offence it adopts a two-stage process. First it issues a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN). This lets the person know that the Home Office is considering deportation and invites representations. The second stage is issuing the...

29th June 2021
BY Iain Halliday

Interviewer: What do you think it means to be British? Mary: It is a passport. To be British now, I’m sorry to say this, but it is a passport. That is it. That is what being British means to me. I have lost faith in the country which I used...

23rd June 2021
BY Melanie Griffiths

In Jallow v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 788 the Court of Appeal looked at the weight that should be given to the rehabilitation of a foreign national offender in their appeal against deportation. Not a great deal, concluded Lord Justice Lewis, giving the unanimous...

9th June 2021
BY Nick Nason

A convicted murderer and father of a Portuguese football star has lost a legal challenge arguing for his own deportation in order to get out of prison earlier than the Parole Board will allow. The case is R (Lopes) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anr [2021]...

3rd June 2021
BY CJ McKinney

In KM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 693, the Court of Appeal concluded that someone with an otherwise “strong” case for remaining in the UK based on their private life might not have a “particularly strong” claim due to criminal offending and time in...

20th May 2021
BY Alex Schymyck

The Court of Appeal has considered, again, whether it is “unduly harsh” for British children to be separated from their father on the basis that he is a foreign criminal. The case is TD (Albania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 619. It concerns an...

13th May 2021
BY Iain Halliday

Juba (s. 94B: access to lawyers) [2021] UKUT 95 (IAC) is the latest judgment dealing with the “deport first appeal later” policy, following on from the famous Kiarie and Byndloss case. In Juba, the Upper Tribunal has found that it was acceptable for the First-Tier Tribunal to hear an appeal...

6th May 2021
BY Nath Gbikpi

In Bikanu (s.11 TCEA; s.117C NIAA; para. 399D) [2021] UKUT 34 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal has confirmed that paragraph 399D of the Immigration Rules has no relevance to the human rights exceptions to deportation set out in section 117C(4)-(6) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. President Lane and...

16th February 2021
BY Eleri Griffiths

Lowe v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 62 is about the role of the Upper Tribunal in deportation appeals. The role of an appellate court when reviewing the findings of fact made by the court below sounds straightforward: it will only intervene if the findings...

27th January 2021
BY Alex Schymyck

The European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that the final offence committed by someone before deportation action is taken against them does not need to be particularly significant if they have a history of serious offending. In Munir Johanna v Denmark (application no. 56803/18) and Khan v Denmark (application no. 26957/19)...

21st January 2021
BY Alex Schymyck

In the case of Robinson (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 53 the Supreme Court has held that there is no “exceptional circumstances” test that applies in EU law to protect a non-EU national carer from deportation. The case involved a Jamaican woman who is...

16th December 2020
BY Colin Yeo

Earlier this year the Court of Appeal looked at the meaning of an offence causing “serious harm” for the purposes of deportation law. Being convicted of such an offence is one of the ways a person can find themselves facing automatic deportation from the UK. The Upper Tribunal has now...

15th December 2020
BY Iain Halliday

The Guardian reports that the Home Office has agreed with Jamaica not to deport Jamaican citizens who arrived in the UK under the age of 12. The scope of the reported agreement is unclear: it arises in the context of an upcoming deportation flight to Jamaica, scheduled for 2 December...

30th November 2020
BY Colin Yeo

It’s rare to get a slobber-knocker of a case from the European Court of Human Rights like Unuane v The United Kingdom (application no. 80343/17). The court unanimously found that the UK’s supposedly Article 8 compliant deportation rules don’t preclude judges from following the correct approach to assessing the proportionality...

25th November 2020
BY Bilaal Shabbir

A key tenet of UK deportation law is that British nationals cannot be deported: section 3(5) of the Immigration Act 1971. And yet, Sajid Zulfiqar, a man born British in the UK, will, barring any further appeals, be deported to the land of his fathers: Zulfiqar (‘Foreign criminal’ : British...

23rd November 2020
BY Nick Nason

When a client argues “but the Home Office told me…”, things usually go downhill pretty quickly. If it wasn’t in writing, it didn’t happen! Emiantor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1461 is a classic example of how difficult it can be to hold the...

17th November 2020
BY Bilaal Shabbir
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