All Articles: July 2012 changes
Win a deportation appeal? You can still be deported, Court of Appeal holds
If a foreign criminal wins their deportation appeal, can the Home Office try and deport them again, even where there has been no further offending? In MA (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1252, the Court of Appea ...
24th July 2019The immigration rules for adult dependent relatives: out with the old…
Since July 2012 the immigration rules for adult dependent relatives have been, in practice, almost impossible to meet. Applicants need to demonstrate that they require a level of long-term personal care that they are unable to get in their home countr ...
8th November 2017“I couldn’t pick her up and it just broke my heart”
Last week the Children’s Commissioner for England released a study into the impact of the Coalition Government’s new family immigration rules, introduced in 2012. The report is an emotionally difficult read with some heart breaking quotes ...
16th September 2015Out with the old, in with the new: Edgehill, Haleemudeen and now Singh
Where an application for leave to remain is made before 9 July 2012 but decided after that date, which Immigration Rules should apply to it? The answer, according to Court of Appeal in Singh v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ ...
23rd February 2015Statement of Changes HC 532
This post is based on an earlier page I made available to Free Movement Members a couple of weeks ago, before Statement of Changes HC 532 took effect. The commencement date of 28 July 2014 has been and gone and we have also seen commencement of the o ...
7th August 2014Outcome of MM minimum income case in Court of Appeal
UPDATE: see report of Supreme Court judgment here. The judgment is now out in the long awaited case of MM v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 985, the test case challenging the minimum income threshold for spouses wishing to ...
11th July 2014Anniversary of new immigration rules
Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the harsh new immigration rules introduced on 9 July 2012. Tomorrow comes the Court of Appeal decision in the challenge to the spouse minimum income threshold. The effects of these rules are really beginning t ...
10th July 20143,641 families put on hold
The Home Office has updated its statistics on the number of families with pending applications separated by the £18,600 minimum income threshold for spouses. At the end of December 2013 it was 3,014. At the end of March it stood at 3,641. That is ...
2nd July 2014Update on Haleemudeen vs Edgehill
Haleemudeen on remittal to UT: SoS conceded Edgehill applied, no need for deference to post-July 2012 and found disproportionate on Art 8 — Mansfield Chambers (@MansfieldImm) June 20, 2014 Free Movement write up and prediction here. And an upda ...
20th June 2014“No right of appeal” human rights decisions
There can be few immigration practitioners who do not presently encounter decisions in relation to applications made on the basis of peoples’ private and family life which do not carry the right of appeal. In recent years the prevailing tendency has ...
2nd June 2014Haleemudeen v Secretary of State for the Home Department
UPDATE: Haleemudeen on remittal to UT: SoS conceded Edgehill applied, no need for deference to post-July 2012 and found disproportionate on Art 8 — Mansfield Chambers (@MansfieldImm) June 20, 2014 The facts of Haleemudeen v Secretary of State fo ...
22nd May 2014Adult dependent relatives: JCWI survey
When the Immigration Rules for families were changed in July 2012, it was the minimum income threshold that rightly attracted the most attention. It has caused huge misery and has divided many loving families, sometimes separating children from parent ...
15th April 2014New rules do not apply to old applications
The Court of Appeal has in the case of Edgehill & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2014] EWCA Civ 402 settled the question of whether the new human rights rules introduced on 9 July 2012 apply to applications made before that dat ...
9th April 20143,014 families put on hold by Home Office
This is while the Home Office, judges and lawyers battle the harsh spouse minimum income threshold through the courts. For an idea of the human misery this is causing, see the distressing comments on this blog here, here and here. ...
12th March 2014Spouse visa minimum income case heard last week
UPDATE: Outcome now known and reported here. Last week the Court of Appeal heard the Home Office appeal in the spouse visa minimum income case. The judges heard argument over two days and did not give a decision there and then. The timescale for a dec ...
11th March 2014Gulshan (Article 8 – new Rules – correct approach) [2013] UKUT 640 (IAC)
It is sad when a judge tasked with deciding whether a British pensioner should live out his last days with his wife or without comments that this was a very run of the mill case Maybe for the judge. In which case the judge should consider his or her p ...
8th January 2014Soldiers to be separated from spouses and children by new rules
Newly introduced Immigration Rules (Statement of Changes HC 803) due to take effect on 1 December 2013 will end a concession for family members of members of the armed forces, forcing many such families to separate if the soldier is stationed to the ...
20th November 2013Update on Home Office appeal against spouse minimum income judgment
I’ve had quite a few queries asking for updates on the spouse minimum income case, MM & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 1900 (Admin). The challenge to the rules essentially succeeded in the High Court but the H ...
28th October 2013Stranded spouses: a convenient form of child abduction
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 ...
24th October 2013‘Form not substance’: Deport rules do not change the law
Theresa May spent over a year saying her new immigration rules would weaken Article 8 rights for “foreign criminals” but conceded the point within a day at the Court of Appeal. MF (Nigeria) v SSHD [2013] EWCA Civ 1192 makes clear that th ...
22nd October 2013Divided families video
Fantastic video by Maryam Tafakory about the effect of the minimum income rule for spouses. Hat tip to Migrants Rights Network. ...
31st July 2013Hope for Families Divided by the Income Threshold
Last week Monday, I represented a married couple in the husband’s immigration appeal in the First-Tier Tribunal instructed by Yomi Oni-Williams of Owens Solicitors. I have the couple’s consent to write this post although there is no need for me ...
22nd July 2013Divided families
Last week saw the anniversary of the miserable new family immigration rules, introduced on 9 July 2012. Heartache and anguish was predicted and has, tragically, come to pass. I attended and spoke at the demonstration outside the Home Office co-ordinat ...
16th July 2013Divided Families Day of Action – 9 July 2013
Following the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration’s report published on 10 June 2013 – covered on Free Movement earlier last month – the ‘new’ family migration rules have been debated twice in Parliament. First, within a W ...
8th July 2013High Court finds minimum income rules disproportionate and unjustified
Almost exactly a year after they were first introduced, Mr Justice Blake sitting in the High Court has in a lengthy, complex and very carefully considered judgment found that the controversial immigration rules requiring a minimum income of at least ...
5th July 2013Parliament Committee Report on New Family Rules and Westminster Debate
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 discrimina ...
20th June 2013Will the real Article 8 please stand up!
In the reported case of Green (Article 8 – new rules) [2013] UKUT 254 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal again reaffirmed that despite the Immigration Rules pertaining to incorporate Article 8, tribunals should continue to consider the substantive Article 8 ...
19th June 2013British women disproportionately affected by new immigration rules
A new Freedom of Information request has revealed that British women have been affected disproportionately compared against men by new minimum income rules for spouse and partner applications. There has been a 20% drop in the female-sponsored proporti ...
10th June 2013High Court rejects May’s high politics
The High Court has endorsed the controversial approach of the Upper Tribunal towards the new immigration rules on human rights. Mr Justice Sales, drawing on concessions made by the Home Office, has found that the correct approach is a two stage one wh ...
18th April 2013May be wrong
Theresa May this weekend launched a blistering and unprecedented attack on ‘a minority of judges’, accused them of ignoring the will of Parliament by refusing to deport foreign criminals. Remarkably, she said that: A minority think it is t ...
18th February 2013Human rights and the immigration rules
The Upper Tribunal has yet again rejected the Government’s contention that new immigration rules define and delineate the extent of the United Kingdom’s human rights obligations. The latest case is Ogundimu (Article 8 – new rules) Nigeri ...
11th February 2013More new Immigration Rules with immediate effect
Statement of Changes HC 820 was laid before Parliament yesterday, 12 December 2012, to come into effect today, 13 December 2012. You need look no further than the fact that this is the ninth Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules this year al ...
13th December 2012Controversial new human rights rules rejected
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 ru ...
31st October 2012The New Deportation Rules
From 9 July 2012 the UKBA’s new rules on deportation took effect and should be retrospective, paragraph A362 stating ‘Where Article 8 is raised in the context of deportation…the claim under Article 8 will only succeed where the requirements ...
7th September 2012New Statement of Changes – sigh…
Yes another Statement of Changes – HC 565 – has been laid and (hold your breath), most of it comes into force… today! I am grateful to Alison Harvey at ILPA, whose hard-work is truly immeasurable: an e-mail was sent out at 11p ...
6th September 2012Family life as a parent: the new rules
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, ...
30th August 2012Theresa May Qualifies a Qualified Right
As the third in a series of blog posts on the radical new July 2012 immigration rules we turn now to the Home Secretary’s attempt to “define” the right to family and private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human ...
15th August 2012New rules on long residence
As the second in a series of blog posts on the radical new July 2012 immigration rules we turn now to long residence requirements. Transitional Provisions Applications for indefinite leave to remain made under Paragraph 276B(i)(a) of the Immigration R ...
13th August 2012