In Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national, when an applicant for asylum who is an unaccompanied minor with no member of...
The Upper Tribunal has rejected the Government’s attempt exhaustively to define the scope and meaning of Article 8 private and family life in the controversial new immigration rules introduced in July 2012. The case is MF (Article 8 – new rules) Nigeria [2012] UKUT 00393 (IAC) and the result will...
On Tuesday this week the Court of Appeal handed down two important new cases on deportation. The first is Mohan v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 1363 and concerns the interaction of family and immigration law. The second is R (on the application of George) v Secretary...
Continuing with our efforts to decipher and digest the new Immigration Rules, this post examines the changes made to the categories relevant to parents of children who are here in the UK. As is common to most if not all categories under the new Rules, this section is also subject...
The Court of Appeal’s judgement in KA (Afghanistan) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 1014 makes it absolutely clear that the Secretary of State’s duty toward unaccompanied minors, in particular her duty to trace family members, is not discharged by giving them leave until...
Following up from yesterday, this post is now going to look at the second case of two from the Upper Tribunal setting further guidance as to how to deal with family proceedings. In Nimako-Boateng (residence orders – Anton considered) [2012] UKUT 00216 (IAC) the UT had considered the position as it...
Two cases were reported very recently from the Upper Tribunal both looking at the impact of family court proceedings and orders on immigration proceedings and vice versa. The first case of Nimako-Boateng (residence orders – Anton considered) [2012] UKUT 00216(IAC) is dealt with in this post leaving the second case...
The recent Supreme Court cases of HH, PH & BH [2012] UKSC 25 did not concern the deportation or expulsion of one or both parents, but rather their extradition. In HH, an European Arrest Warrant had been issued in respect of a Polish mother of 5 children, aged between 21 and 3...
In Buama (inter-country adoption – competent court) Ghana [2012] UKUT 146 (IAC) Upper Tribunal Judge Warr held that there is no basis for the UK Border Agency to go behind a court order made by a competent court in a foreign country. Where such an order is valid on its face the...
The UK Border Agency will start x-raying children again from 29 March 2012 in order to determine their age. This practice is highly controversial. The letter announcing the resumption of this procedure can be found here. This brings to mind another example of the application of false quasi-scientific ‘certainty’ to another unmeasurable:...
This is the week in which Human Rights Watch reported that ‘Children deported to Kabul will face horrible risks‘ and Amnesty International reported that at least 28 children had died in the IDP camps around Kabul as result of the freezing winter conditions and lack of food. Yet to respond...
In D v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWCA Civ 39 (31 January 2012) the Court of Appeal upheld the determinations of both the First Tier and Upper Tribunals in finding the Maslov ‘very serious reasons for justifying the expulsion of a foreign national’ criterion (Maslov at...
Today’s report by the Children’s Commissioner, Landing in Dover, exposes gross double standards by UK Border Agency officials. The report reveals the existence of a so called ‘gentleman’s agreement’ operating at the south coast ports whereby an unaccompanied child who did not make an immediate asylum claim would be returned...
The Upper Tribunal in T (s.55 BCIA 2009 – entry clearance) Jamaica [2011] UKUT 00483 (IAC) has decided that section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 does not apply to children outside of the United Kingdom, although you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise after reading the...
There are two recent cases to cover on this subject. The first is AJ (India) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1191, in which I was Shivani Jegarajah‘s junior, despite my puzzling omission from the court record (must sort that out), and the other is...
NA (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWCA Civ 1172 This case concerned a challenge to the decision of the SSHD to remove the Claimant, and her infant daughter, to Latvia on Third Country grounds. The challenge failed but the Court made some important comments in...
In a judgment handed down yesterday HH Judge Anthony Thornton QC has given some very interesting guidance on the scope of the duty under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 following the guidance of the Supreme Court in the landmark case of ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary...
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 positive and on the whole the detention facility staff come out of...
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 of cases on the availability of funds in Tier...
Last weekend I finally read the Refugee Council report Lives in the Balance: The quality of immigration legal advice given to separated children seeking asylum. It is a short, sharp, very depressing but absolutely essential read for any solicitors, OISC advisers or barristers representing separated children in the asylum process. There...
Quick plug for a new publication from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, to which I contributed a chapter. It is called Working with Refugee Children: Current Issues in Best Practice and can be downloaded for free from the ILPA website or requested from ILPA in hard copy. The launch was...
Firstly, I should apologise for getting behind with my updates. I have nominally been on holiday this last week and my internet connection, perhaps fortuitously for my holiday, died unexpectedly half way through. Briefly, we have seen a major judgment from the Supreme Court on detention issues and a major...
A slightly belated post to highlight another important decision of the Court of Appeal that will have relevance to both immigration and family law practitioners. R (FZ) v London Borough of Croydon [2011] EWCA Civ 59 concerns age dispute assessments and has set further guidance on a) how procedurally speaking...
The long awaited new Country Guidance case on Zimbabwe is finally out: EM and Others (Returnees) Zimbabwe CG [2011] UKUT 98 (IAC) (BAILII link here). It includes interesting guidance not only on Zimbabwean asylum claims but also on dealing with cases where children have been resident for seven years or more....
The Home Office has introduced a new way of dealing with the return of families from the UK. It is called the ‘family return process’. If it is faithfully implemented by staff on the ground (a big ‘if’), it represents a massive improvement on the previous approach. The main policy...
This is a problem that has been addressed previously on the blog: what can be done when a person makes an immigration application but for technical legal reasons is not granted a right of appeal to the tribunal? See this previous post. The problem has now been addressed in two...
An important case from late last year has so far escaped comment here on Free Movement but deserves special mention: MH (pending family proceedings – discretionary leave) Morocco [2010] UKUT 439 (IAC) (28 September 2010). In it, the Upper Tribunal confirmed the currency of the earlier Court of Appeal of...
In what to me is a shocking development, we learn through the case of R (on the application of AO) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 110 (Admin) (28 January 2011) that it actually takes the UK Border Agency longer to process a child’s asylum claim than...
The Supreme Court has today handed down judgment in a major case on the best interests of children generally and the best interests of British Citizen children specifically. ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4 finally addresses the weight to be given to the...
The routine detention of immigrant children by the last Government was a disgrace. Claimed changes to detention policy by the current incumbents and the recent case of R (on the application of Suppiah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 2 (Admin) (11 January 2011) reveal just how...
I’m a bit behind the times at the moment for all sorts of reasons (giving up blog, lots happening in immigration law, having first baby) and this is one of the important cases that slipped under my radar while I was away. In the case of R (on the application of...
There have been two big developments in the last week or so: the ‘ending’ of child detention and the successful challenge to the temporary mad cap (as I link to think of it). On child detention, Alan Travis of The Guardian was clearly well briefed as he managed to publish...
UKBA has published a new policy on dealing with children, specifically asylum applications by unaccompanied children. It went ‘live’ on 1 September 2010 and can be found with the earlier link or in the Asylum Process Guidance Special Cases section. The policy is a considerable improvement on the previous version....
Yet more good news, this time for children and their parents. In LD (Article 8 best interests of child) Zimbabwe [2010] UKUT 278 (IAC) the President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has found that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is highly...
There have been two interesting recent cases on Article 8. The most recent and far and away most important is SS (India) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 388, handed down yesterday. The Court of Appeal holds that the now withdrawn seven year children policy,...
