The challenge by organisation Britcits to the virtual prohibition on the entry of adult dependant relatives introduced in 2012 has been dismissed: R (on the application of Britcits) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 956 (Admin). Despite the disappointing outcome, though, there is a distinct silver lining to...
If you are planning to return from the continent with a little illicit saucisson and brie, then beware of the dogs at Manchester Airport. According to David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, the Border Force detector dogs at Manchester ‘were making multiple detections of small amounts...
Just a quick catch up post to alert readers to the Government’s response to the damning report by James Ewins, published on 17 December 2015, and developments since then. The review concluded that the Coalition Government’s amendments to the Immigration Rules on overseas domestic workers exposed them to enhanced risk...
The Annual Report of the tribunal system has been published. The review of the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber review starts at page 74. The First-tier report tells of long waits caused by fluctuations in caseload, a long-term change from salaried to fee-paid judges and with it a loss...
An unannounced inspection of short term detention facilities for refugees and migrants crossing the Channel into the UK has revealed that hundreds, including many children, have been held in “wholly unacceptable” and insanitary conditions. Many were held in a disused freight shed and forced to sleep on concrete floors, with no...
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has published a new report which is highly critical of Home Office complaint handling. The findings echo those of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman from November 2015. Bolt and his team find “considerable room for improvement” in many respects. For...
This post is reblogged from Professor Steve Peer’s excellent and comprehensive post on the immigration aspects of UK’s renegotiation proposals. What follows is the section of that blog post on family members. Head over to the original for more information on benefits, the “emergency brake” and criminality and free movement...
Full judgment is available here: R (on the application of ZAT and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Article 8 ECHR – Dublin Regulation – interface – proportionality) IJR [2016] UKUT 61 (IAC). The applicant children were all clearly very vulnerable and all had family members in the UK....
Over the last two weeks a local group, with ever mounting, incredible support from so many through word of mouth and social media, raised funds and collected priority items to take to the Calais ‘Jungle’ and Dunkirk camp. We filled 3 large vans and a car with men’s clothes, blankets,...
Today is International Migrants Day. The IOM (International Organisation for Migration) keeps track of the dead washing up on the shores of Europe with their Missing Migrants Project. So far this year 3,671 have drowned on the edges of Europe. 5,086 have died worldwide. The ever rising death toll is clearly...
This weekend, I spent Saturday at the Immigration Law Practitioners Association Annual General Meeting. What a lark. The main attraction, other than catching up with (increasingly) old friends, was a talk by David Bolt, the newish Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. It was clear from his presentation that he...
The quarterly immigration statistics were published this morning. Net migration has reached its highest ever level, now standing at 336,000 for the year ended June 2015. Immigration increased by 62,000 to 636,000 and emigration decreased by 20,000 to 300,000. This is largely due to the UK’s relatively strong economy: less...
David Bolt, the former spy turned new(ish) Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has issued a new report on Home Office decision making in settlement applications. The full report and Home Office response can be accessed here. The report is generally positive but the inspectors are critical of some aspects of...
Some of Owen’s lines make it hard not to think of the 3,350 that the International Organisation for Migration believe have drowned so far attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year. The number of drownings so far in 2015 already exceed the total for the whole of 2014. With crossings continuing into...
Yesterday Home Secretary Theresa May gave a speech on immigration and asylum issues at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. It was a nakedly political speech that was clearly intended to appeal to the right wing of the Conservative Party. Theresa May is positioning herself to make a bid for...
The Immigration Bill 2015 was published on 17 September 2015. For now, this post provides links to further reading and resources on the Bill and also some commentary on the appeals sections, which are of the most direct interest to immigration lawyers like myself. I may update and perhaps republish the...
Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules HC 437 has been published. Most of the changes are fairly minor or technical but not all. From the explanatory notes: The purpose of these changes is to: implement section 53(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”) which provides that the...
Back in 2001 the EU adopted Council Directive 2001/55/EC, usually referred to as the Temporary Protection Directive. Its full title reveals its purpose: on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and on measures promoting a balance of efforts between Member States...
In another Hamid judgment the Upper Tribunal has referred for investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority the conduct of another solicitors’ firm, this time Sandbrook Solicitors. The case is Re Sandbrook Solicitors [2015] EWHC 2473 (Admin). Sitting in the Upper Tribunal, Mr Justice Green makes clear that no findings of fact were...
Last month’s report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, Inspection of Border Force Operations at Heathrow Airport, reveals that the Border Force Officers at Heathrow Airport are failing to record justifications for detention and searches of passengers. If they did keep a record, they often failed to complete...
The float list is dreaded by lawyers and hated by appellants. Basically, the immigration tribunal is already so under resourced (and that is before the coming cuts) and so utterly lacking in respect for immigrants and their friends, families and lawyers that a higher number of cases are listed to...
There have been rumours over the last week that the number of hearing rooms for immigration, asylum and deportation cases is to be drastically reduced from August 2015. Well placed sources report that in London the total number of hearing rooms will be reduced to 7 including 2 bail courts...
Standing at the door to No 10, David Cameron stated that he would form a majority government and implement the Conservative Party manifesto “in full”. The moderating influence of the Liberal Democrats has been extinguished. The nationalist isolationism of the Scots and the SNP renders them irrelevant in UK politics...
Home Office Minister Lord Bates, responding to a question from Lord Green of Migration Watch on population control and the effect of the children of migrants: Lord Green: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest assessment of the impact of international migration on the population of the United...
Last week highlighted the blight of the UK’s immigration detention camps. We saw the broadcast of two major Channel 4 investigations into conditions at the Yarl’s Wood and Harmondsworth immigration detention camps here in the UK. The reports were based in part on work by Corporate Watch, which I am...
In a recent determination, the President of the Upper Tribunal suggested that documents and submissions could be sent electronically to the tribunal in order to facilitate efficient justice: …parties and their representatives are strongly encouraged to communicate electronically with the Tribunal and, further, to seek confirmation that important communications and/or...
Remarkably honest response to Freedom Information Request for Home Office training materials on the immigration law changes taking effect on 28 July 2014: The withheld training documents contain lines to take, which could assist a foreign criminal’s representatives in forming their arguments for appeal. If their appeals were successful, then we could be prevented from deporting foreign criminals in cases where it would be appropriate to do so. We can’t have foreign criminals winning appeals or being aware of the arguments that might help them to do...
Some information about the shadowy Upper Tribunal Reporting Committee shared with me by the indefatigable Shoaib Khan, obtained through a Freedom of Information request: The current members of the reporting committee are: Mr Justice McCloskey (President), Mr C M G Ockelton (Vice President), Upper Tribunal Judge Peter Lane (Chair), Upper...
On 20 November 2014, the National Audit Office – the independent Parliamentary body responsible for scrutinising the way in which the government spends public money – published a report on the implementation of the post-2010 civil legal aid reforms. Its central conclusion is an unsurprising one: while spending on civil...
Have you forgotten yet?… For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved...
Following the death at Heathrow Airport in October 2010 of Jimmy Mubenga during the course of his deportation this week saw the start of a landmark prosecution of the three G4S Detention Custody Officers. Counsel for the Crown Mark Dennis QC opening the case said: [The guards] held Mubenga in...
Gail Elliman was first and foremost a fantastically warm, funny and compassionate human being. She was also a socialist, a feminist, a lawyer, a trainer, an immigration judge and a coroner. Tragically, she died on 19 October 2014 at the age of 53. I did not know Gail well enough...
The clue is in the word “illegal”, David. There are a very wide range of criminal offences covering all types of, er, illegal behaviour. Not just in immigration law, either! In an immigration context, though, section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971 (“title: Illegal entry and similar offences”) is probably the...
This from Channel 4 News about the collapse of a huge “sham marriage” criminal trial: But, when immigration officers were questioned in the witness box, it emerged that evidence had been tampered with or concealed, possibly destroyed, video footage had gone missing, and an investigation log had been doctored. His Honour...
The National Audit Office has published a damning report on the UK’s deportation process today. The numbers of foreign criminals deported have actually declined since 2008-09 despite a tenfold increase in the number of staff dealing with these cases at the Home Office, from below 100 in 2006 to over...
“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes...
So Banksy’s new immigration themed mural in Clacton — where Douglas Carswell has resigned as Conservative MP to stand in a by election for UKIP — has been destroyed by the local council before anyone else even knew it was there on the grounds that it was “offensive” and “racist”. Stop...
Interesting reports from a meeting on gender and refugee law tonight: Madam Justice Catriona Jarvis: Being a feminist judge in the immigration tribunal has been a solitary & lonely path #GenderInRefugeeLaw — Asylum Aid (@AsylumAid) September 29, 2014 (I’m fairly sure Asylum Aid have her title wrong in that one.)
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