HM Inspectorate of Prisons yesterday published two reports based on unannounced inspections of the short term immigration holding facilities at Heathrow Terminals 3 and 4 (Terminal 3 report here and Terminal 4 report here). The reports are broadly positive and on the whole the detention facility staff come out of...
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes a mass removal. Evidence of other breaches of confidentiality in Sri Lankan asylum cases is emerging. These could be isolated mistakes or there could be...
An investigation is required as a matter of extreme urgency into an accepted breach of confidentiality in respect of the case of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman detained by the UKBA and pending removal to Sri Lanka on 16 June 2011. It is important to stress that UKBA do not...
In an earlier post I highlighted the new Ministerial Authorisation permitting race discrimination by immigration officials. This followed on from the exposure of discrimination against Pakistanis purely on the basis of their nationality by the Chief Inspector of UKBA. At that time I asked whether anyone else had been able...
The Home Office has introduced a new way of dealing with the return of families from the UK. It is called the ‘family return process’. If it is faithfully implemented by staff on the ground (a big ‘if’), it represents a massive improvement on the previous approach. The main policy...
This is a problem that has been addressed previously on the blog: what can be done when a person makes an immigration application but for technical legal reasons is not granted a right of appeal to the tribunal? See this previous post. The problem has now been addressed in two...
The European Court of Human Rights has just held that it is unlawful to send asylum seekers to Greece under what is widely known as the ‘Dublin II’ Regulation for their asylum claims to be processed there. The case is MSS v Greece and Belgium, no. 30696/09, 21 January 2010 (also...
There have been two big developments in the last week or so: the ‘ending’ of child detention and the successful challenge to the temporary mad cap (as I link to think of it). On child detention, Alan Travis of The Guardian was clearly well briefed as he managed to publish...
The Government has confirmed that removals to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation have been suspended pending the outcome of the test case. This comes following a number of recent news items on the calamity that is the Greek asylum ‘system’. Or, in the words of UNHCR themselves, ‘humanitarian crisis’....
R (on the application of Medical Justice) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 1925 (Admin) should be a wake up call to civil servants at UKBA and Ministers in the new Government. The High Court declared unlawful the Home Office policy of conducting no notice removals....
I can’t keep up! If things ever quieten down I’ll do a few more weighty analysis posts but in the meantime these alerter ones must suffice. Firstly, the Medical Justice challenge to no-notice removals has succeeded: R (on the application of Medical Justice) v Secretary of State for the Home Department...
No-notice removals have been suspended following a legal challenge brought by Medical Justice. The no-notice policy has been covered here previously and was the subject of a damning judgment by Mr Justice Collins when two children were taken from foster care by UKBA without warning for same day removal. The policy was...
Further to my alerter post on this last month, the judgment is now available in the damning Third Country removals case on children. It is called R (on the application of T) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 435 (Admin). As expected, the judgment is scathing. It...
UKBA have changed their removals policy, and not in a nice way. The announcement letter to stakeholders is available here and does not really tell half the story. In essence, the 72 hour notice period for removals is to be waived in a wide range of cases and no-notice removals will...
There has been a noticeable trend recently for the Home Office to refuse applications but not to take enforcement action. Several lawyers have commented on this elsewhere, I’ve just come across a couple of cases and so has a colleague in chambers. Where a person’s leave has already expired, if...
The Government’s disregard for the rule of law grows more and more alarming. I confine myself on this blog to immigration and asylum law, perhaps the most blatant area of disregard for the rule of law, but other examples abound in the news at the moment. The latest example in...
Oh dear, another crackdown has been announced by the good Dr Reid. Read all about via the Home Office press release, or here if you prefer the BBC version. I won’t bother with links to the major papers, they are easy to look up. The press release is moderately worded and...
