All Articles: Immigration news

I’ve left out the names. There were two children and both were born in Britain as British citizens. They can “go home” where they belong, though, as far as this civil servant is concerned.

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29th September 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The government has issued guidance on how section 65 of the Immigration Act 2014 will be applied. Section 65 fills the gap for children of British Citizen fathers born before 2006 whose parents were/are not married. The provisions will create a registration route for: Those who would have become British...

26th September 2014
BY Louise Hooper

So the Judicial Appointments Commission is seeking to recruit “up to 20” fee paid Deputy Judges of the Upper Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber and six salaried Judges of the Upper Tribunal, Immigration and Asylum Chamber. The former are paid £595 per day for up to 30 days per year. The latter...

17th September 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Coming back from my break and looking through various updates, I was struck by a series of articles on citizenship and nationality laws in the event of Scottish independence following the vote this Thursday. Some of these seem to me fundamentally to misunderstand the independence process as it is likely to...

15th September 2014
BY Colin Yeo

You are giving me your testimony and I will hold it for you and I will honour it and I will bear witness to what has happened to you. Memorial Fund

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21st August 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Want to know what it was like stuck on the float list at Hatton Cross today? Read Emily Dugan’s excellent write up in The Independent. We weren’t the only ones. Several cases were adjourned off to future dates, including cases in which my Garden Court colleagues Taimour Lay and Peter...

19th August 2014
BY Colin Yeo

It is considered that a significant number of children are brought up satisfactorily by one parent alone with little or no contact with their other parent.

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30th July 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Guardian is reporting that Isabella Acevedo, former immigration minister Mark Harper’s former cleaner, was arrested at her daughter’s wedding on Friday last week. Fifteen blackshirts burst in along with a few regular police officers just before the ceremony, it is said. The Daily Mail picked up the story but...

21st July 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The first Commencement Order for the Immigration Act 2014 has been made: the Immigration Act 2014 (Commencement No. 1, Transitory and Saving Provisions) Order 2014 (SI 2014/1820). There is no known date for commencement of the main right of appeals provisions or the new removal power but some of the provision of...

14th July 2014
BY Colin Yeo

  I was just taking a look at the official immigration statistics to compare refusal rates for different nationalities. This jumped out at me, though: the refusal rate for visa applications by Syrians now stands at 57%. There was a 16 percentage point jump in the refusal rate between 3rd...

8th July 2014
BY Colin Yeo

So, the Home Office was doing such a bad job of immigration control that it decided to outsource its responsibilities to employers, then universities, then doctors and now, under the Immigration Act 2014, private citizen landlords. But the same Home Office is surprised and horrified that these institutions are no...

24th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Last year, in 2013, the Home Office launched its #beatthepeak campaign to warn holidaymakers to apply early for passports. In the space of a year we’ve gone from a social media campaign showing smoothly oiled machines churning out shiny new passports by the second to leaked photos showing the applications...

12th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Link to the Bill home page here for updates and developments.

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11th June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Full text of the Immigration Act 2014 if you haven’t seen it already. I’ve been away and am catching up.

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2nd June 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Home Office has managed to use a photo of a child that it wanted to remove from the UK as the face of its campaign to overturn a High Court judgment allowing divided families to be reunited. The news item concerns the controversial minimum income rule that is dividing...

4th April 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The story of Yashika Bageerathi has touched many. A bright student brought to the UK by her mother with her siblings to escape domestic violence at home in Mauritius, she has a promising future here if allowed to remain. Because she has turned 18 and is no longer a child, though,...

30th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In another highly critical report on immigration enforcement by the Home Office, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine has found that in nearly two thirds of cases (59%) immigration enforcement officers entering business premises lacked the legal authority to do so and in addition were regularly flouting their...

26th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

This is while the Home Office, judges and lawyers battle the harsh spouse minimum income threshold through the courts. For an idea of the human misery this is causing, see the distressing comments on this blog here, here and here.

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12th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Immigration Law News For the Home Office’s report: “Impacts of migration on UK native employment: An analytical review of the evidence”, click here. From 1 April 2014, the British Refugee Council and Migrant Helpline will provide advice services to asylum seekers and refugees. To read further, click here. For updated register of...

12th March 2014
BY Garden Court Chambers

What is a radical lawyer? What I mean by it are those lawyers whose actions and attitudes were largely motivated by a political ideology – socialism and further left; or at least angry lawyers dedicated to fundamental changes to the law, its institutions and the legal system. They were fearless...

6th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

As of 1 October 2013 there is a new formal mechanism for making complaints about judges. The process is set out in the Judicial Conduct (Tribunals) Rules 2013. A colleague alerted me to these rules and a recent comment on the blog persuaded me that it is worth highlighting them here.

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27th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The fourth part in the Migrant Journey research series was recently released by the Home Office. It examines what happened to non EEA migrants who entered the UK by various lawful means in 2007. A few random snippets of facts I thought were interesting:

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24th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Polite suggestions in the comments, please. Via @legalchap and @MBEGriffiths.

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20th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Immigration Minister Mark Harper has resigned from the Government because in 2007 he employed a cleaner who did not have permission to work. Harper claims that he has not broken the law but is resigning because “I should hold myself to a higher standard than expected of others”. The first part...

8th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

A Home Office spokesman said: “Staff who make exceptional contributions to the work of the Home Office are eligible for special one-off payments” Apparently a total of 11,672 bonuses were paid in 2012/13 to around 40% of staff, equating to a mean bonus of £559. Who knew that 40% of staff at...

5th February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

"Citizenship is a privilege not a right." So say both Judge Dredd and Immigration Minister Mark Harper. As has been pointed out, the UK government is now literally getting its immigration policy from Judge Dredd.

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1st February 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Actress and justice campaigner Joanna Lumley has joined her voice to the rising chorus of concern about the catastrophic changes to Legal Aid. She adds her name, forever associated with the legally aided fight for the rights of Gurkhas (not to mention Ab Fab, James Bond and the New Avengers),...

17th January 2014
BY Greg Ó Ceallaigh

News just in… Following the foretold floods of 1 January 2014 and the ending of labour market restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians, Bulgarian mixed grill (Meshana skara) and Romanian sour soup (Ciorbă) are already outselling chicken tikka masala as the new British national dish here in the UK.

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2nd January 2014
BY Colin Yeo

In another leak exclusive to Free Movement it is possible to reveal further Immigration Rule changes to be introduced at short notice. It is understood the new Statement of Changes will be published on 25 December 2013, becoming the seventeenth Statement of that month and the 97th of this year....

23rd December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Rehman Chishti: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many vouchers her Department has provided to her Department’s presenting officers for winning cases at immigration tribunals; what the (a) value and (b) store was of each such voucher; and whether these officers face penalties for losing...

20th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

It is inevitable that the poor treatment of migrants today will be our dishonour tomorrow. Great video and Our Day website from Migrants Rights Network for UN International Migrants Day.

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18th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

William Hague ‘paid tribute‘ to the hospitality of the Lebanese people but here in the UK there is no room at the inn: still the UK refuses to offer resettlement to Syrian refugees. Contrast that with Germany, for example.

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13th December 2013
BY Colin Yeo

We are all very proud at Garden Court Chambers that the fantastic and inspiring Stephanie Harrison QC last night won Liberty‘s Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award. She was cited for her prowess as an advocate for human rights and commitment to progressing the rights of immigrants and asylum...

26th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Interesting, reflective piece in The Guardian by Jon Henley on use of walls in the era of globalisation: ‘Something there is,” runs a line from Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall, “that doesn’t love a wall.” But for as long as mankind has been building, we have been building walls: around...

23rd November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

By choice they made themselves immune/To pity and whatever mourns in man/Before the last sea and the hapless stars A few weeks ago I spent a Friday evening reading through some of the war poems of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. I was trying to get to grips with a case...

11th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Image from The Economist showing the true geographic size of Africa

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19th October 2013
BY Colin Yeo

The long promised Immigration Bill, consisting of 66 clauses and 8 schedules, has now been published.  It is accompanied by explanatory notes and a detailed memorandum by the Home Office intended to show that the Bill is compatible with ECHR rights. ‘Highlights’ include: 

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11th October 2013
BY Ronan Toal

Migrants will not stop coming to Europe in search of a better life no matter how many sea patrols the politicians send. Families will not allow themselves to be torn apart no matter how tough the immigration rules get. Our politicians are fighting basic human needs and basic human nature....

3rd October 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Self-styled Theresa ‘CRAZY’ May, our esteemed Home Secretary, has unveiled a range of hardline new immigration measures at the Conservative Party conference. I’ve added the capitals, but in relating her little anecdote about Abu Qatada she seems happy enough to be associated with the moniker: I was told a story by one...

1st October 2013
BY Colin Yeo

My partners and customers now suspect I might have been involved in this campaign which, let me tell you, has been quite unpopular abroad. Source: BBC

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17th September 2013
BY Colin Yeo
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