The government has proposed the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration as the interim monitoring body for the EU citizen settled status scheme. This briefing examines the powers, remit and impact of the Chief Inspector. The Chief Inspe ...

A new report from the independent immigration inspector shines new light on how enforcement officials get their hands on data about migrants from other government departments. David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, als ...

Almost half the recommendations made by the independent immigration inspector over the last three years have not been followed by the Home Office, the inspector’s annual report shows. David Bolt’s survey of the 2017/18 financial year says ...

Government measures aimed at stopping irregular migrants from renting a home are not being properly evaluated, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has found. The controversial Right to Rent scheme is “yet to demonstrate it ...

Countries are being declared safe for refugees to return to, but only if they have criminal records, a new report by the government’s immigration inspector suggests. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, found t ...

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has urged the Home Office to fundamentally overhaul the country of origin information it gives to officials making asylum decisions. David Bolt’s latest report, published today, says tha ...

For some reason the Home Office has just released a swathe of inspection reports into a wide range of Home Office operations. In practical terms, this makes it impossible for the press to pick out more than one or two stories from the reports and it t ...

According to estimates, there are 10,000-13,000 victims of modern slavery living in the UK. In order to tackle this problem, the UK government operates a Modern Slavery Strategy, and the Border Force plays its part by identifying potential victims, an ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has published a new report on the Home Office approach to sham marriages. The report is critical of the change in approach brought about by new powers conferred on officials by the Immigration Act 2014: T ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has published five new inspection reports. The most interesting is on the “hostile environment”, specifically the powers to deny driving licences and bank accounts to migrants unl ...

The Immigration Act 2014 removed rights of appeal to an independent judge against refusal of many immigration decisions, replacing appeals with a system of internal review within the Home Office. It is called Administrative Review. The Chief Inspecto ...

If you are planning to return from the continent with a little illicit saucisson and brie, then beware of the dogs at Manchester Airport. According to David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, the Border Force detector do ...

A recent report by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, revealed that the management of curtailment decisions in Tier 4 cases is inconsistent and the Home Office is unable to deal with the thousands of curtailment cases and ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, has published a new report which is highly critical of Home Office complaint handling. The findings echo those of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman from November 2015. Bolt and h ...

A new report into asylum casework at the Home Office has just been published by David Bolt, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. The inspection took place between March and July 2015 and was presented to Theresa May on 9 Decembe ...

David Bolt, the former spy turned new(ish) Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has issued a new report on Home Office decision making in settlement applications. The full report and Home Office response can be accessed here. The report is gene ...

Improvements have been made to the quality of decisions and to record-keeping in the Home Office’s Visa Section in Jordan. However, the decision makers regularly failed to take supporting evidence adequately into account, and, in a fifth of ca ...

Last month’s report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, Inspection of Border Force Operations at Heathrow Airport, reveals that the Border Force Officers at Heathrow Airport are failing to record justifications for detent ...

The family visit visa system underwent an inspection by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration last month. The posts inspected were Abu Dhabi, Accra, Amman, Dhaka, Kingston, Manila, Nairobi, New Delhi, Croydon and Sheffield. The In ...

Just a quick one to flag up a new report by Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration John Vine into the European Casework Directorate at the Home Office. The report is generally quite positive but the emphasis of the press release, introductory text ...

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 ...

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has just published a damning report looking at the removals process at the Home Office. That the Home Office is not effective in conducting removals is hardly news to those of us who work in immigration l ...

The latest report by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, was published this week. It concerns applications to enter, remain and settle in the UK on the basis of marriage and civil partnerships and the summary of rec ...

In asylum cases it is still referred to as The Legacy, as if it were a second rate Spagetti Western. In immigration cases it has the more prosaic title of the ‘migration refusal pool’. The UK Border Agency’s inspectorate has today [u ...

Carrying on from FM’s open season article last week, it is clear that immigration lawyers are getting a hard time of it at the moment: first it was judge bashing and now the lawyers are in the firing line. The pernicious pastime of naming and sh ...

The Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, John Vine, has published a global review of entry clearance decision making. The findings are strongly critical in important respects. The sample size was nearly 1,500 case files from every entry clearance ...