Boris Johnson announced seemingly sweeping changes to the UK immigration system for scientists on 8 August 2019. Behind the usual rhetoric about attracting the “brightest and the best”, the reality is a lot less dramatic and potentially a ...

The Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa route was closed in March 2019. At the same time, two new immigration routes — Innovator and Start-up — came into being. But entry to either scheme rests on the notoriously difficult task of getting an endors ...

Hot on the heels of the decision in Sajjad comes another mind-bending Home Office decision on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa extensions, this time relating to job creation.  In R (Khajuria) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1226, an Indian entrepreneur had created the ...

One of the requirements for Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) migrants extending their visas in the UK is to show they have invested £200,000 that they previously showed was available for investment in their initial applications. The important case of R (Sajjad) ...

Almost as soon as a court has provided substantive guidance on a particular area of immigration law, the law seems to change. So it is in R (Islam) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 500. The Court of Appeal in this case take ...

A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was published today, 7 March 2019. It is 294 pages long and covers a lot of ground. The main changes are to Tier 1 entrepreneur and investment visas, and to the EU Settlement Scheme. This requir ...

The Court of Appeal has reluctantly but unanimously agreed with the Home Office’s decision to refuse a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) application for further leave to remain based on a factual issue of specified documents not being submitted. It rejected arg ...

The Home Office has rowed back last week’s announcement that the Tier 1 (Investor) route was suspended with near-immediate effect. It was widely reported last Thursday that the route would be closed to new applications from midnight the next day ...

We expected a full statement of changes to the Immigration Rules to be laid before Parliament yesterday but instead we got a statement about the statement. The immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, gave us a sneak preview of a range of tweaks to the r ...

To go along with the private jet and luxury yacht, the current ‘must-have’ for a discerning multi-millionaire seems to be a range of international passports. The phenomenon of citizenship by investment has emerged over the last few decades an ...

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, the Home Office’s latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules comes into force tomorrow (Friday 6 July 2018). Nath has summarised the various changes being introduced in a previous post. Althou ...

On Friday 15 June, a new statement of changes was laid. Rather atypically, many of the changes are welcome news! All changes will come into force on 6 July 2018, although some only apply to applications made after that date. As always, practitioners a ...

With London Tech Week upon us, Sajid Javid today announced the introduction of a new “start-up” visa route for entrepreneurs looking to set up businesses in the UK. According to one part of the announcement, it will replace the Tier 1 (Gra ...

Back in January, we wrote about the case of Dr Syed Kazmi, a foreign doctor due to be removed from the UK because of a “HMRC tax issue” disqualifying him from settlement. Since then, many more refusals of settlement applications by highly ...

On 1 March the Court of Appeal looked at Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) appeal. Although the appeal was dismissed, the court confirmed that running a business may amount to private life ...

In the midst of an “NHS crisis”, with two in three hospitals said to have a shortage of doctors, immigration laws appear to be making the situation worse. Last week iNews reported that dozens of medics with offers to work in the NHS had their vi ...

Today’s decision in Anwar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 2134 confirms that if the Home Office wishes to impose visa conditions, it must give people written notice of those conditions. If the Home Office fails ...

The Home Secretary recently announced that the number of people who can be accepted under the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) immigration route would double, from 1,000 to 2,000 each year. The exceptional talent visa regime does exactly what it says on t ...

Nadeem Anjum applied for a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa in early 2015. It was refused. The Entry Clearance Officer took the view, following an interview with Mr Anjum, that he was not a “genuine entrepreneur”. Since rights of appeal against ...

Businesses large and small are the backbone of our economies, and enterprise is the engine of our prosperity. That is why Britain is – and will always be – open for business: open to investment in our companies, infrastructure, universities and en ...

In yet another case highlighting the absurdly hostile, bureaucratic and inflexible nature of the UK’s Points Based System the Court of Appeal has held that a Tier 1 Entrepreneur might benefit from a policy on evidential flexibility that was R ...

A few snippets from a recent debate in the House of Lords. An amendment to the current Immigration Bill currently wending its way through Parliament was tabled which would close the Tier 1 Investor route. This type of visa is obtained by making an inv ...

Major changes to the Immigration Rules affecting refugees, Tiers 1, 2 and 5, EEA nationals sponsoring family members under the Immigration Rules, visitors, applications for Administrative Review and knowledge of language and life tests are being intro ...

A new report by Transparency International, Gold rush: Investment visas and corrupt capital flows into the UK, suggests that substantial amounts of corrupt wealth stolen from China and Russia are “highly likely” to have been laundered in ...

The High Court has found part of the Tier 1 Entrepreneur rules to be irrational in the case of R (on the application of Sabir & Ors) & Anor v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWHC 264 (Admin). Despite succeeding ...

The Court of Appeal condemns the complexity of the Points Based System in the case of Hossain & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] EWCA Civ 207. Lord Justice Beatson says at paragraph 30: The detail, the number of documents th ...

The case of Ahmed and Another (PBS: admissible evidence) [2014] UKUT 365 (IAC) concerns the ‘genuineness’ test that was introduced for entrepreneur applications as the final death knell for the original concept of the Points Based Syste ...

Official headnote: The requirement to prove the existence of “contracts” in paragraph 41-SD of Appendix A to the immigration rules does not itself require the contracts in question to be contained in documents. There is, however, a need for such c ...

A plethora of immigration tweaks were announced yesterday, mainly of a technical nature. There is still no sign of the introduction of a minimum income level nor the ending of Tier 2 settlement applications. It is beginning to seem likely that these w ...

In parallel announcements the UK Border Agency has said that language requirements for Tiers 1, 2 and 4 of the Points Based System (highly skilled, skilled and students) are being tightened up slightly. The concession that allowed Tier 1 and 2 applica ...

The Exceptional Talent route attracted a lot of attention and comment when it was announced way back in November 2010. Questions were starting to be asked about what had happened to it and whether arts and science organisations were really willing to ...