All Articles: Deportation
Strasbourg reiterates importance of access to justice in national security deportation cases
Imagine being accused of a crime. Now imagine you’re not told what that crime is. Then imagine a whole trial taking place without you being told what you’ve done and without you seeing any documents to prove it. Every time the top-secret evidence ...
22nd October 2020Court of Appeal confirms change of course in deportation appeals
In AA (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1296 the Court of Appeal has considered its first deportation appeal since the important case of HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1176. It confirms that the “unduly har ...
12th October 2020EU deportation protections after Brexit
From next year there will be two categories of EEA national: Those who began their residence in the UK before 31 December 2020; and Those who began their residence in the UK after 31 December 2020. The law a person is subject to will depend on whi ...
24th September 2020Major Court of Appeal judgment revisits “unduly harsh” test and other key concepts
If you are a deportation lawyer, stop what you are doing and read HA (Iraq) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1176, handed down by the Court of Appeal on 4 September 2020. It will take you about three hours, but it will be worth it. The lead judgment of Lord Jus ...
8th September 2020Happy birthday from the Home Office: you’re being deported
In Mendes v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 924 the Court of Appeal considered the process for removing an EU citizen from the UK whilst they have a pending appeal against deportation. The legal issue is largely the same as ...
4th August 2020Briefing: what is the law on deporting non-EU foreign criminals and their human rights?
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 ...
2nd July 2020When is a foreign criminal not a foreign criminal?
That is the question answered by the Upper Tribunal in SC (paras A398 – 339D: ‘foreign criminal’: procedure) Albania [2020] UKUT 187 (IAC). The appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. So he is ...
22nd June 2020Revocation challenge fails despite ten-year deportation delay
Where a person is subject to a deportation order but wishes to remain in the UK, they must apply for the order to be revoked. The case of FH v SSHD [2020] EWHC 1482 considers this process and the applicable rules. The rules on revocation The Secretary ...
22nd June 2020What is an offence causing “serious harm”?
This deceptively simple question was the subject of the Court of Appeal’s decision in the three joined cases reported as Mahmood v Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) & Ors [2020] EWCA Civ 717. Sending a picture of your penis to a ...
12th June 2020Strasbourg approves deportation of Dutch-born man from the Netherlands
Chucking people out of a country they were born in is hard. It usually takes something pretty dramatic or pretty terrible — or both, as in the case of Azerkane v The Netherlands (application no. 3138/16). The facts Mr Azerkane was born in the Ne ...
9th June 2020Another deportation appeal founders on the “unduly harsh” test
We have written often on Free Movement about the meaning of the term “unduly harsh“. It is the test which people facing deportation must meet where arguing that their separation from a partner or child would amount to a breach of their hum ...
17th April 2020Deportation of Royal Marine with 14 years’ service upheld on appeal
In LE (St Vincent and the Grenadines) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 505 the Court of Appeal upheld a decision to deport a Royal Marine who had fought for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan over a 14-year career in the armed forces. It is difficult to imagi ...
15th April 2020Prison time doesn’t count as “residence” in establishing enhanced EU law protection against deportation
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the judicial review case of Hafeez v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2020] EWHC 437 (Admin). In that judgment, handed down on 28 February, the High Court held that decisions to certify cases ...
24th March 2020Who counts as a “partner” for the purposes of deportation law?
When I was a young lad, there was a rule in our house that a girlfriend could only come to stay if the relationship was a “serious” one. During one particularly heated exchange regarding the enforcement of this rule, I recall a tedious and ...
20th March 2020How can a man with Asperger syndrome who grew up in Britain be deported?
How can a young man with Asperger syndrome and poor mental health, who has lived in the UK for the overwhelming majority of his life, be deported to Jamaica? The Voice newspaper reports on the case of Osime Brown, a 21-year-old man who the Home Office ...
11th March 2020Writing incredibly credible statements: the key to winning your clients’ cases
In asylum and criminal deportation and probably all areas of immigration, credibility is the key. Some of my own techniques for building credibility into a statement include: I “read” or “watch” the client’s narrative like a novel or a fil ...
10th March 2020EU citizens are protected by EU law, High Court reminds government
The High Court has held that the Home Office trying to apply its “deport first, appeal later” policy to EU citizens is incompatible with European Union law. The case is Hafeez v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2020] ...
9th March 2020Supreme Court: detention is unlawful if based on unlawful deportation order
The Supreme Court has found in the case of DN (Rwanda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 7 that the detention of a Rwandan man facing deportation was unlawful because the deportation order on which detention was based was itself ...
26th February 2020Having a British child “not necessarily a weighty factor” in deportation cases
Patel (British citizen child – deportation) [2020] UKUT 45 (IAC) considers the importance of British citizenship held by children of people being deported from the UK. The case concerned an appeal brought by Mr Patel, an Indian citizen, against ...
25th February 2020Dutch man wins deportation appeal after judge messes up legal test
The Court of Appeal’s judgment in Hussein v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 156 is another reminder of the multiple layers of protection from deportation which EU citizens enjoy. In particular, it focuses on the importance ...
18th February 2020Comment: Jamaica charter flight shows the need for deportation law reform
Last night a deportation flight took off for Jamaica, despite the protests of MPs and a last minute injunction that saw some removed from the plane. Many of the Jamaican citizens involved grew up in the UK — such as the man who has been here sin ...
11th February 2020Public interest in deporting criminals can be reduced, says Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal has given judgment in Akinyemi v SSHD (No 2) [2019] EWCA Civ 2098, a long-running appeal concerning the deportation of a man who was born in the UK in 1983, and has never left. In reversing (again) the decision of the Upper Tribuna ...
12th December 2019Risk of trauma for children not enough to prevent deportation
For those lawyers, like my Lord and myself, who have spent many years practising in the family jurisdiction, this is not a comfortable interpretation to apply. But that is what Parliament has decided… So held Lord Justice Baker, giving judgment in S ...
5th December 2019Child abuse victim given deportation reprieve
The Court of Appeal has given judgment in CI (Nigeria) v SSHD [2019] EWCA Civ 2027, providing further guidance on the law relating to the deportation of foreign criminals, and in particular on the meaning in section 117C(4) of the Nationality Immigrat ...
27th November 2019EU children can be lawfully resident in the UK without exercising treaty rights
The Upper Tribunal judgment in MS (British citizenship; EEA appeals) Belgium [2019] UKUT 356 (IAC) confirms that certain EU citizen children in the UK can be considered lawfully resident for the purposes of Article 8 of the European Convention on Huma ...
19th November 2019Old convictions very much count towards a new deportation order
Someone sentenced to more than four years’ imprisonment is in the most serious category of offender for the purposes of deportation law, no matter how long ago that sentence was, the Court of Appeal has confirmed. The case is OH (Algeria) v Secr ...
24th October 2019What happens when a deportation order is served on a 17-year-old EEA national detained in prison?
Regulation 33 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1052) does not wrongfully exclude the ordinary principles applicable in interim relief applications. It does not exclude them at all. So held Mr Justice Murray in R (Y ...
16th August 201912 years a litigant: Franco Vomero case returns to Supreme Court
The Supreme Court handed down its second judgment in the long-running case of Franco Vomero today. The latest instalment is Secretary of State for the Home Department v Franco Vomero [2019] UKSC 35. The facts Mr Vomero is Italian. He moved to the UK a ...
24th July 2019Win a deportation appeal? You can still be deported, Court of Appeal holds
If a foreign criminal wins their deportation appeal, can the Home Office try and deport them again, even where there has been no further offending? In MA (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1252, the Court of Appea ...
24th July 2019What does “unduly harsh” mean in deportation cases?
In the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v PG (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 1213 the Court of Appeal considered the meaning of “unduly harsh” in deportation cases, overturning the decisions of both of the tribunals that had pr ...
17th July 2019Father of three with sickle cell disease faces deportation for drug offences after six-year appeal saga
The deportation case of a Nigerian man with sickle cell disease, resident in the UK for almost three decades, has been bouncing around the UK court system for over six years. It appears the case has finally been settled by the Court of Appeal – on i ...
9th July 2019Detention in a young offender institution can nullify enhanced protection against deportation
Detention in a young offender institution has much the same impact on an EU citizen’s enhanced protection against deportation as imprisonment in an adult jail, the Court of Appeal has held. The case is Secretary of State for the Home Department ...
26th June 2019A concrete example of how to meet the “very compelling circumstances” deportation test
The Court of Appeal has upheld the appeal against deportation of a man sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, in the process providing a good example of the kind of human rights arguments that will sway judges in this notoriously difficult area ...
17th June 2019Refugee to be deported to Somalia after 30 years in UK following robbery conviction
The Court of Appeal has upheld the deportation of a refugee known only as AM who entered the UK in 1987 aged 11. Having grown up and been educated in the UK, AM held several jobs at different times, had been married and had three estranged British chi ...
9th May 2019Yet more guidance on automatic deportation
The Upper Tribunal has handed down two cases with guidance on a range of issues relating to the automatic deportation regime. In both cases the appellants sought to rely on statements from the Supreme Court in KO (Nigeria) and Others v Secretary of St ...
16th April 2019Migrants can be deported as “persistent offenders” even if crime-free for years
The Court of Appeal has reiterated that a migrant can be regarded as a “persistent offender” for the purposes of deportation law even if he or she has not committed a crime for some time. The case is Binbuga (Turkey) v Secretary of State f ...
8th April 2019How new immigration regulations will make it easier to deport EU citizens after Brexit
The draft Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, laid before Parliament on 11 February, make major changes to the law on deportation of European Economic Area and Turkish citizens after Brexit. They will kick in on the date of ...
13th March 2019