Author: Colin Yeo

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 government has launched a formal and anodyne-sounding “Consultation on reforms to social housing allocations“. It proposed a new series of bars to being allocated certain types of social housing, including a “UK connection test” which would be passed by being a British citizen, EEA citizen with equal treatment rights,...

9th February 2024
BY Colin Yeo

Naturalisation is the legal process by which a non-British adult becomes a British citizen. An application has to be made to the Home Office and if the criteria set out in the British Nationality Act 1981 are met then the application will be granted and the person can attend a...

8th February 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The short answer is “yes, criminals can be denied refugee status.” There is a moral dimension to the Refugee Convention. But the criminal offence or offending must be particularly serious in nature. The offending or behaviour must be serious in nature because denying refugee status to a person and sending...

2nd February 2024
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...

10th January 2024
BY Colin Yeo

Every year I try to take stock, look back at the year that was and look ahead to the year that will be. I also take a quick look at what’s been going on at Free Movement. There were only two Home Secretaries appointed in the year just gone. That’s...

2nd January 2024
BY Colin Yeo

The Free Movement website will be down over the weekend while it is updated. When it comes back up, hopefully on Sunday, it will look subtly different. We are updating the software behind the website for the first time since 2016. We’re not planning any major changes to the design,...

15th December 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The Home Secretary must set out a lawful plan to completely end its use of hotels for accommodating lone refugee children. This is the conclusion of Judge Chamberlain in  R (on the application of Kent County Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 3030 (Admin). The case...

12th December 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The “no recourse to public funds” condition is imposed on grants of limited leave to enter or remain with the effect of prohibiting the person holding that leave from accessing certain defined public funds, set out at paragraph 6 of the immigration rules. A person who deliberately claims public funds despite such...

7th December 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The asylum system seems finally to have turned a corner: the asylum backlog is starting to fall. The backlog is the single most important problem with the asylum system. Unlike arrivals, it is something the government can control. It creates huge financial costs for the taxpayer. It sucks money out...

28th November 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The Supreme Court has today held that Rwanda is not a safe country and that it would be unlawful for refugees to be removed there. The government’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s judgment has been dismissed. Lord Reed, giving the court’s judgment, emphasised the non-political nature of the court’s role,...

15th November 2023
BY Colin Yeo
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