Author: Colin Yeo

Picture of Colin Yeo

Colin Yeo

Immigration and asylum barrister, blogger, writer and consultant at Garden Court Chambers in London and founder of the Free Movement immigration law website.

The common travel area enables passport-free and legal travel between the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands for British and Irish citizens and migrants with lawful status. Once a person is within the common travel area, there are no...

21st October 2025
BY Colin Yeo

New immigration rules were published today affecting a wide range of immigration routes. Most of the changes had already been announced in the earlier immigration white paper but there are a few surprises included in what is formally known as Statement of Changes HC 1333. If you are glutton for...

14th October 2025
BY Colin Yeo

This briefing examines the powers, remit and impact of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. On Tuesday, John Tuckett was officially appointed as the new Independent Chief Inspector. The previous Inspector was David Bolt, and before that David Neal and John Vine. This briefing examines the institution rather...

9th October 2025
BY Colin Yeo

While the basic concept of the right of abode is relatively simple to explain, the real questions are often who has it and why — which can very complicated to answer. We’ve put together this explainer to address those questions. If you spot something missing or incorrect in this post,...

7th October 2025
BY Colin Yeo

A child born abroad to British citizen parents who were themselves born abroad is not automatically British at birth. While this might be no shock to immigration lawyers, occasionally the story of a family finding out their child is not British in these circumstances will make headlines. One such example...

19th September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

Last weekend’s reshuffle saw Yvette Cooper replaced as Home Secretary by Shabana Mahmood, who was previously the Lord Chancellor. In addition, Angela Eagle, previously the Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum, and Seema Malhotra, previously the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Citizenship, have both been moved...

8th September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

Update: this route is currently suspended and new applications cannot be made. Family reunion applications submitted before 3pm tomorrow, including those currently under appeal, will continue to be assessed under these rules. This post is intended for refugees (including those with humanitarian protection), their families and their friends trying to...

3rd September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

A “returning resident” is a resident of the United Kingdom with settled status who returns to the country after a lengthy absence abroad. Ordinarily, when a person refers to “returning residents” they might be talking about a temporary resident who leaves for a short time, for example on holiday or...

2nd September 2025
BY Colin Yeo

In this briefing we will take a look at what is really going on with the main features of the contemporary asylum system: arrivals, the backlog, detention, removal and resettlement. The focus is on what caused the backlog and what consequences will flow from the large number of decisions being...

27th August 2025
BY Colin Yeo

Anybody over the age of ten who applies for registration or naturalisation as a British citizen needs to meet the so-called “good character requirement”. This is a mandatory requirement set out in the British Nationality Act 1981. Where a person is deemed by the Home Office not to be “of...

20th August 2025
BY Colin Yeo
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