The Court of Appeal has given judgment in two linked cases involving victims of trafficking prosecuted in the UK for offences linked to their trafficking: N v R [2019] EWCA Crim 752. In one of the cases, involving a young Vietnamese man prosecuted fo ...

The EU Settlement Scheme scheme has been set up by the UK government for European residents to apply for “settled status” after Brexit. It is considered necessary because most citizens of European Union countries will lose their existing legal st ...

The Court of Appeal in DW (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 797 has stepped in to overturn the First-tier Tribunal’s decision to block the deportation of an individual on the basis of his family life. Factual ba ...

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Ejimson v Germany (application no. 58681/12) has a whiff of Groundhog Day. For the second time in just over six months the court found that a Nigerian national convicted of drug-related crimes co ...

The High Court in R (MS) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 2797 (Admin) has found that in circumstances where a person would have no option but to stay on the streets after release from detention, the Home Office has a duty und ...

The Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal against deportation of a man with permanent residence in Kamki v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1715. Mr Kamki had been seeking to prevent his removal to Cameroon following ...

Today saw the release of the Advocate General’s Opinion in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) joined cases of C-316/16 B v Land Baden-Württemberg and C-424/16 Secretary of State for the Home Department v Franco Vomero. The issue ...

Ovidiu-Mihaita Petrea emigrated from Romania to Greece, ready to build a new life there. However, he made a big mistake: he committed robbery and was sentenced by a Greek criminal court in 2011. The case is C-184/16 Ovidiu-Mihăiţă Petrea v Ypour ...

Practitioners commonly rely on the “integration test” in the Immigration Rules to resist an individual’s removal on human rights grounds. The current rules can in some circumstances require a consideration of whether there would be “very s ...

Shortly after Christmas in 2009, a young woman from Somalia flew into Stanstead and claimed asylum. She had just turned 18. As later accepted by the Home Office, she had experienced severe depredations in her home country. This included her rape at th ...

The Home Office has imposed fines on small businesses for employing illegal workers of over £14 million in just a three month period. The period covered is January to March 2016. The list of businesses targeted by officials appears to include mainly ...

In yet another example of a refugee who was not properly advised on his defence to a prosecution for illegal entry, Shabani, Re [2015] EWCA Crim 1924 (22 July 2015), the Lord Chief Justice has overturned the conviction but this time has also referred ...

In a very interesting judgment the Canadian Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional the criminal offence of organising, inducing, aiding or abetting undocumented entry. The case is R. v. Appulonappa – SCC Cases (Lexus). This post reviews th ...

In the absence of legal means by which to enter countries of sanctuary, refugees resort to the use of irregular means of entry. Some will falsely apply for and obtain a visit or student visa and then apply for asylum once within the UK. Others will u ...

It is very widely believed that the Human Rights Act stops the UK from deporting foreign criminals whence they came. To a limited extent, there is some truth in this. Some appeals against deportation decisions do succeed on human rights grounds. Not m ...

Omenma (Conditional discharge – not a conviction of an offence) [2014] UKUT 314 (IAC) is an interesting case for two reasons. Firstly, the Home Office accepted that the decision was wrong and withdrew it. Nevertheless, because the case had reac ...

In another highly critical report on immigration enforcement by the Home Office, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine has found that in nearly two thirds of cases (59%) immigration enforcement officers entering business premises l ...

Immigration Minister Mark Harper has resigned from the Government because in 2007 he employed a cleaner who did not have permission to work. Harper claims that he has not broken the law but is resigning because “I should hold myself to a higher ...

In R (on the application of P (DRC) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 3879 (Admin), handed down on 9 December 2013, Mr Justice Philips held that P would be at risk of treatment in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR if deported to t ...

Child abduction is a criminal offence. It requires covert departure from the UK to another country, and from the abductor’s point of view preferably one that is not in Europe, not a signatory to the Hague Convention and that does not have a bila ...

Refugees fleeing persecution in their home country cannot afford to be scrupulous about the means by which they reach sanctuary in another country. This truism was recognised by the drafters of the Refugee Convention: Article 31 affords refugees prote ...

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 traf ...

Recently the Law Society Gazette ran an article by Yewa Holiday, a barrister and a case review manager at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which highlighted the plight of asylum seekers and refugees wrongly convicted after being advised t ...