Goodbye paragraph 395C?
Theresa May and David Cameron have promised to crack down on the perversion of human rights. May specifically stated that she wanted to amend the Immigration Rules to do so. Some of this is no doubt pure politics of the dogwhistle variety: it will not ...
14th October 2011Home Office appeal in Quila dismissed
UPDATE: SEE LATEST POST. In a judgment just handed down the Supreme Court has by a majority dismissed the Home Secretary’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s ruling in the case of Quila v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] ...
12th October 2011Five years of immigration detention ruled unlawful
In the case of R (on the application of Sino) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2249 (Admin) (25 August 2011) John Howell QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, held that the entire period of detention of an Algerian m ...
11th October 2011Yet another major immigration speech
Prime Minister David Cameron has made yet another keynote speech on immigration. He seems hell bent on setting back race relations in this country by forty years. Encouraging members of the public to rat on suspected illegal immigrant neighbours or wo ...
10th October 2011Maya The Cat
I have so far refrained from any mention of cats, although I came THIS close to asking in examination in chief yesterday whether my clients owned a cat… You can read the disputed determination for yourself here, courtesy of The New Statesman. Yo ...
7th October 2011More on Zambrano
I’ve previously posted up the publicly available UKBA guidance on Zambrano, but a commenter very helpfully posted a link to more information available on the Wornham & Co blog. I don’t myself post letters to or from ILPA unless the inf ...
6th October 2011Yet more Tribunal decisions
After what felt like something of a hiatus early in the year, the tribunal has been churning out new reported cases in recent months as if there was no tomorrow. As far as I know no-one has suggested scrapping the Immigration and Asylum Chamber YET, a ...
4th October 2011Family migration proposals
Damian Green’s speech on immigration on 15 September 2011 revealed various proposals which seem likely to become law. These build and elucidate on previous proposals, previously covered here on the blog. The tone of the speech and the proposals ...
29th September 2011Zambrano guidance by UKBA
The first of my catch-up posts comes courtesy of the indefatigable Mr T – many thanks, Mr T. The UK Border Agency have issued some belated guidance on the Zambrano case. It only appears in the form of an item on the news section of the UKBA webs ...
27th September 2011Immigration control
Passing through immigration control on my return to the UK yesterday, my wife had to restrain me from taking a photograph of one of the notices that appeared on the UK visual displays at Heathrow. She wanted to get home sooner rather than later and, o ...
26th September 2011Free Movement is away
I’m off on holiday and am delighted to say that I won’t be back for three weeks. I’d hoped to set a couple of posts to pop up automatically while I’m away but I’ve been too busy packing. See you in a few weeks. ...
5th September 2011More reported tribunal cases
I’m a bit behind on tribunal determination updates, but here’s the latest batch of diktats reported cases. The first is interesting, the others somewhat less so, in that they do not seem to have a great deal of broader application. The r ...
30th August 2011New research paper on marriage immigration
The Home Office have published a new piece of research they commissioned, entitled Marriage-related migration to the UK, by Katharine Charsley, Nicholas Van Hear, Michaela Benson and Brooke Storer-Church. It makes very interesting reading for anyone i ...
25th August 2011One MILLION hits!
Free Movement has just hit one MILLION, er, hits. As with Dr Evil, that isn’t actually a lot of hits in today’s world, but for a small, specialist legal blog it isn’t bad going. Time for some reminiscing… The first post was on ...
23rd August 2011New ILPA website
The Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) have substantially re-vamped their website. It is a huge improvement on the old one. The public-facing site is basically the same as the old one but looks better and more modern. A new facility for ...
22nd August 2011The UK Border Agency: de-moralised
In his speech on Monday addressing the long term causes behind the recent looting, David Cameron blamed the State. The communities that erupted need less help, not more, it would seem. In some classic post-Blair, verb-free rhetoric, Cameron recited so ...
17th August 2011Second appeal criteria tighter than expected
Mark Symes has posted an article over at the HJT Immigration Blog on a new case from the Court of Appeal on the ‘second appeal criteria’. The case is PR (Sri Lanka) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 988 ...
15th August 2011English barrister refused right of audience in immigration tribunal in Scotland
It turns out that the muppets* at the Ministry of Justice have laid regulations that at first glance appear to forbid English and Welsh barristers and solicitors from appearing in the immigration tribunal in Scotland and Northern Ireland but which per ...
8th August 2011Claim CPD hours through the blog
It is now possible to claim CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points through the blog, in conjunction with HJT Training. The poll a couple of weeks ago suggested that there is a reasonable level of interest in this, so we’ve put togethe ...
3rd August 2011New bail guidance and AVID Handbook
I have started to think about the Herculean (perhaps Sisyphean a better analogy? – ed.) task of updating the HJT Immigration Manual, something I do at least once per year. This year there is a LOT to change, and I’m not looking forward to ...
2nd August 2011Critical report on UKBA use of country information
The Chief Inspector of UKBA, John Vine, two weeks ago released a new report on the use of country information by the UK Border Agency in asylum claims. I’ve been too busy to finish writing about it, unfortunately, and am still catching up on va ...
28th July 2011Important new case on costs
The Court of Appeal has given judgment in an extremely important new case on costs, R (on the application of Bahta & Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 895 (26 July 2011). It specifically concerns the UK Bo ...
27th July 2011UKBA to Libyans: PLEASE don’t claim asylum
The UK Border Agency can be very generous and understanding when it wants to be. For some reason, Libyans currently in the UK whose visas are running out are being told that they don’t need to meet the rules required for an extension, they don ...
22nd July 2011Exceptional Talent route finally opens
The Exceptional Talent route attracted a lot of attention and comment when it was announced way back in November 2010. Questions were starting to be asked about what had happened to it and whether arts and science organisations were really willing to ...
21st July 2011More tribunal decisions
Another series of edictsreported cases has been handed down by the Upper Tribunal. Official headnotes and links to the BAILII judgments are included below. I’ve also thrown in another couple of cases that slipped out since the last big batch. We ...
18th July 2011Carpet Karaoke training video
Amnesty International have put together a training video for potential recruits to the private security firms contracted to carry out forced removals. It is well worth a watch. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vldHz2ZJoxY&w=560&h=349] T ...
15th July 2011Consultation on family migration: Tories to reintroduce ‘primary purpose’ rule
The Government yesterday launched another consultation on restricting immigration, this time family immigration. The splash on the UKBA website is here, the Ministerial statement here, the consultation document here and the accompanying research pape ...
14th July 2011CPD hours through Free Movement
Free Movement is planning to launch a scheme to allow regular readers who are barristers, solicitors or OISC advisers to claim some CPD hours by reading the blog and then answering multiple choice questions. This would be done in conjunction with HJT ...
14th July 2011Ministerial statement on IAS
The minister with responsibility for legal aid, Jonathan Djanogly MP, has made a statement (reproduced below) on the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration. Once again, the emphasis is on transfer of files to new providers rather than ...
13th July 2011Some IAS offices viable?
Some or all of the staff at the IAS Bristol office have put together a press release and made a bid for independence. The text is reproduced below. This follows from a mysterious comment signed off only as ‘IAS’ left on the original Law S ...
12th July 2011IAS website finally updated
Following the terrible news about the Immigration Advisory Service going into administration, their website has finally been updated with information for clients. The full text is reproduced below in case it changes or is taken down (complete with th ...
11th July 2011Immigration Advisory Service in administration
Rumours have been circulating over the weekend but the Legal Services Commission has now confirmed [UPDATES: see also BBC news story, Law Society Gazette story and comments and follow-up, Guardian story and subsequent FM post] that IAS, the larg ...
11th July 2011Amnesty campaign on forced removals
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to change the way that the UK Border Agency conducts forced removals. The practices used by the private security contractors who do the dirty work for the Border Agency was highlighted earlier this year by ...
8th July 2011Critical HM Inspector of Prisons reports published
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 pos ...
7th July 2011Migration Museum Project event
The previously mentioned Migration Museum Project ‘100 Images of Migration‘ competition deadline has been extended to 15 July 2011. I have been given permission to use the image to the side as an example of one of the entries. A woman born ...
1st July 2011Batch of new tribunal decisions
The legal luggage carousel of the tribunal’s reporting committee has deposited a large batch of new cases in the arrivals hall of BAILII. Some of these cases are interesting, others perhaps a little less so. The more interesting include a couple ...
30th June 2011Judicial review of the Upper Tribunal
Last week, while I was away, the Supreme Court held that the Upper Tribunal can be judicially reviewed, and in much wider circumstances than envisaged previously by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. For England and Wales the case is Cart and MR ...
29th June 2011Strasbourg allows Somali test case
The cases of Sufi and Elmi v UK (Applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07) have been allowed by the European Court of Human Rights. This is a major judgment on return to Somalia and the conditions there. The press release can be found here and the ...
28th June 2011BAILII fundraising
BAILII, the invaluable resource which provides much of the material for this blog, is under threat of closure. It seems that the Ministry of Justice has withdrawn funding, and BAILII are seeking replacement commitments from solicitors firms and barris ...
17th June 2011Quila case live on web TV
[UPDATE: SEE HERE FOR OUTCOME OF CASE] Tune in to Supreme Court Live! on the web for live coverage provided by Sky News of the hearing in the Quila case in the Supreme Court. It kicks off at 10.30am this morning, 8 June 2011. This link takes you to th ...
8th June 2011