All Articles: Children

A guidance change made in July 2023 is affecting the ability of the new-born babies of refugees to obtain refugee status. This is an issue that affects a limited group of people, namely those who have been granted refugee leave for five years, and have a child born in the...

8th March 2024
BY Stewart MacLachlan

In a recent decision, Mohammed Ismael Suliman Abdullah for judicial review [2024] ScotCS CSOH_8, the Court of Session clarified that when a young person is seeking for a court to make a finding in relation to their age in Scotland, the action should be raised as a declarator of age...

13th February 2024
BY Francesca Sella

As anyone who has ever battled the Home Office over whether a client has “sole responsibility” over a child’s upbringing or whether their exclusion is otherwise undesirable will know, this requirement is antiquated, outdated and causes a lot of unnecessary stress and hassle while separating children from their parents. Paragraph...

15th December 2023
BY Alex Piletska

In what seems to be a prelude to the introduction of the use of ionising radiation (x-rays) for non-medical reasons on children, the government has published the Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023. There is also a draft explanatory memorandum containing a statement by the Secretary of State for...

14th September 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The majority of unaccompanied children who enter the UK to seek asylum do not bring with them evidence of their age. Because of this, the Home Office has a duty to carry out an initial assessment of their age to establish whether they are, or could be, children. The Home...

4th July 2023
BY Francesca Sella

The Home office has published new guidance introducing a streamlined process to deal with child asylum applications. The policy explained in the guidance apparently intends to help the Home Office fulfil the commitment made by Rishi Sunak to clear the asylum backlog by the end of 2023. The policy applies...

21st March 2023
BY Francesca Sella

This article reviews some common cross-cultural pitfalls between legal representatives and young people claiming asylum. It also provides some ideas on how to mitigate cultural misunderstandings. Going into your initial meeting, a basic understanding of your client’s culture is helpful to build trust and a good rapport. It is not...

19th January 2023
BY Sarah Wahby

It is often not possible to mitigate additional distress when working with children given the nature of the asylum regime and the need to explore the hardest moments in your client’s life. This post gives some ideas on how to mitigate this distress when helping a child prepare an asylum...

17th November 2022
BY Sarah Wahby

The Supreme Court has today handed down judgment in four linked cases all concerning the best interests of children who themselves face removal from the UK or whose parent faces removal from the UK. The case is likely to be referred to as KO (Nigeria) and Others v Secretary of...

24th October 2018
BY Colin Yeo

In one of his final judgments as outgoing President, Mr Justice McCloskey launched a bitter broadside at the conduct of government lawyers in long-running litigation over the entry of refugee children. While the criticism of the solicitors at the Government Legal Department and of previous barristers instructed for the Home...

9th October 2017
BY colinyeo

The Court of Appeal in GD (Ghana) [2017] EWCA Civ 1126 explained once again what effect residence orders granted by a Family Court have on immigration matters, and criticised both representatives in the First-Tier Tribunal for failing to put the relevant law to the Tribunal. The ‘residence order’ regime has now...

8th August 2017
BY paulerdunast

By the tone of this judgment, the Court of Appeal in SSHD v RF (Jamaica) [2017] EWCA Civ 124 appears to be suffering from deportation fatigue, considering ‘yet another case’ [1] involving a foreign national criminal appealing against a decision to deport. It is testament to the high stakes involved, both politically for...

25th May 2017
BY nicknason

In Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 184 the Court of Appeal considers the weight to be given to the relationship between parents and their adult dependent children in the Article 8 balancing exercise. It is notable – and this was the principal reason the case...

30th March 2017
BY nicknason

Two interesting and important legal points emerge from the Upper Tribunal’s determination in SF and others (Guidance, post-2014 Act) [2017] UKUT 120 (IAC). The first is on the issue of when, if at all, a British child might be required by immigration policy to leave the UK and the second...

29th March 2017
BY Colin Yeo

The Home Office has belatedly published the reports of the Independent Family Returns Panel for 2012 to 2014 and 2014 to 2016. Home Office responses have been published in parallel. Why the Home Office was withholding from publication for so long the 2012-14 report is something of a mystery. The panel is made...

19th January 2017
BY Colin Yeo

The UK government, and Europe, has spared no expense to ensure that wherever the people trying to get to Europe end up, it isn’t here. But the courts are seemingly doing their best to help. The Court of Appeal’s judgment in Secretary of State for the Home Department v ZAT...

7th September 2016
BY Jared Ficklin

If you attempt to murder someone with a gun, and after release from prison for attempted murder (a sentence of over four years), are caught again with a loaded gun and imprisoned, do not be surprised that only the most exceptional circumstances will save you from deportation. This was all...

15th July 2016
BY Paul Erdunast

President McCloskey certainly isn’t wrong when he says of the immigration rules on human rights introduced in 2012: These provisions of the Rules have generated much jurisprudence during the last two years. In this latest contribution to that ever growing jurisprudential midden, Treebhawon and others (section 117B(6)) [2015] UKUT 674 (IAC), the...

16th December 2015
BY Colin Yeo

With the Children Act 1988, the language of “access” and “custody” was abandoned in family law, and with good reason. The language was suggestive of incarceration, it encouraged confrontation between parents and it was based on the idea of children as inanimate parcels or packages. In immigration law, though, that...

1st June 2015
BY Colin Yeo

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that 415 children aged 10-18 have been refused British citizenship on character grounds. The power to refuse citizenship on character grounds was controversially extended from adults to children as young as 10 in 2010. The refusals include 25 of children aged 10-13, 95...

26th January 2015
BY Colin Yeo

Official headnote from Mohammed (Family Court proceedings-outcome) [2014] UKUT 419 (IAC): Whilst it may be that in the Family Court jurisdiction prior to the coming into force on 22 April 2014 of the Children and Families Act 2014 there was always the possibility of a parent making a fresh application...

25th September 2014
BY Colin Yeo

Kent Law Clinic has published a new report, How Children Become Failed Asylum Seekers, which needs to be read by anyone representing children in asylum cases. Taking the files of 25 “failed asylum seekers” who had arrived in Kent as children, they reviewed the decision making process of the Home Office,...

20th August 2014
BY Jo Wilding

The Court of Appeal has finally grappled with the question of how to apply the best interests of children in an immigration context and given detailed guidance on how judges should approach the exercise. The judgment, in the case of EV (Philippines) & Ors v Secretary of State for the...

4th July 2014
BY Colin Yeo

A child referred to in court only as “Maya” is six years old. She has Spina Bifida and is very severely disabled. She also has severe learning difficulties and extremely complex needs. For the last five years she has received highly specialised medical treatment and has attended a special school...

27th May 2014
BY Colin Yeo

This jumped out at me from the newspaper the other day: People who may find it difficult to give their best possible evidence in a courtroom environment and all child victims will be considered in the pilot areas. This allows them to give evidence and be cross-examined by both prosecution...

29th 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

A new fourth edition is out, published by ILPA and written by Shauna Gillan with Alison Harvey and Sarah Myerscough. Free to download.

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24th March 2014
BY Colin Yeo

The Supreme Court considered the best interests principle in the immigration, asylum and nationality context twice during 2013.  Both cases continued the trend of the contraction of the principle in the higher appellate courts.

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24th March 2014
BY Bijan Hoshi

Human rights medical treatment expulsion cases are perhaps some of the most stark, most difficult and most challenging cases faced by a human rights lawyer. They concern life itself and will often involve a miserable, painful death if unsuccessful. The claimant and his or her family will be understandably desperate to...

27th November 2013
BY Colin Yeo

On Wednesday 23rd October 2013, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights heard oral evidence on the government’s latest proposals to cut legal aid. The evidence was clear.  Those that will suffer the most from the proposals are society’s most vulnerable groups – children, care leavers, and victims of sexual abuse...

8th November 2013
BY Samuel Hawke

The Court of Appeal has held that a different test applies to children in human rights health cases. These difficult cases involve a person seeking to remain in the UK in order to receive life-saving medical treatment not available in his or her home country. The recent case of Rose...

23rd October 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Many migrants and their families get caught in a situation where they apply to the Home Office for permission to stay, are rejected but then are unable to appeal the decision to the immigration tribunal. This has long been a problem (‘Refusal with no right of appeal revisited‘) but is...

23rd September 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Zambrano cases for admission to the UK finally seem to be filtering through to the Upper Tribunal. In MA and SM (Zambrano: EU children outside EU) Iran [2013] UKUT 00380 (IAC) there are two linked appeals, both involving a child resident in the UK with one parent where the other...

9th August 2013
BY Colin Yeo

In SS (Malaysia) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 888 a child’s Christian mother had fled with the child from Malaysia after the father said he was to convert to Islam, fearing that their child would be brought up a Muslim not a Christian. The...

19th July 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Finally, there has been a breakthrough in cases where victims of trafficking find themselves prosecuted and convicted here in the UK for engaging in the very activity into which the victim was forced. It may seem strange that it is the victims of trafficking that have ended up with criminal...

24th June 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Last week, Free Movement posted the fruits of a FoI request disclosing the statistics in relation to partner applications from pre- and post-July 2012.  These figures were then analysed and fair conclusions were drawn in relation to gender discrimination on the basis that female sponsors generally earn less than male...

20th June 2013
BY Sarah Pinder

Confirming the earlier Opinion in the same case the Court of Justice of the European Union has today held in MA and Others v UK (Case C‑648/11), in effect, that the Dublin II regulation does not apply to separated children who have claimed asylum. The key conclusion is as follows: …where an unaccompanied...

6th June 2013
BY Colin Yeo

There are some detailed blog posts to come on some of the more important things that happened in the last fortnight, but for those who missed their beloved Free Movement updates here is a brief round up of developments I’ve spotted looking through my emails on my return from holiday....

21st May 2013
BY Free Movement

Immigration detention dehumanises not only the detainee but also every person who deals with it. It is a poison that infects us all. The professionals who deal with detainees and their families develop coping mechanisms. We convince ourselves that detention is necessary, that there is no alternative, that it is...

19th April 2013
BY Colin Yeo

Like me, readers may have detected some uncertainty from the First-tier and Upper Tribunals about how best to determine claims of former UASCs from Afghanistan in light of EU and others (Afghanistan).   In EU the Court of Appeal, Sir Stanley Burnton giving the only substantive judgement, determined the individual claimants’...

26th March 2013
BY Iain Palmer
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