Depending on which pundit you speak to, a no-deal Brexit has either got more likely or less likely over the last couple of weeks. It remains the default if the UK-EU withdrawal agreement is not passed at the third time of asking, and a further extensi ...

The Home Office amended its definition of a ‘professional sportsperson’ back in January 2019. At the time, I set out why I thought the changes were significant: Why coaching your kid’s football team could breach your visa conditions. Sin ...

The government recently published information about arrangements for EU citizens who move to the UK after the UK leaves the EU in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The proposals would mean that EU (and EEA) national children who move to the UK between th ...

Immigration lawyers helping sponsoring universities navigate the complexities of the Points Based System naturally have an economic interest in overseas students — but then so does the rest of the nation. That is the uncompromising conclusion of ...

Last week the Court of Appeal dealt with the issue of fairness and discretion in the context of the Points Based System. Specifically, it decided that such values take a firm second place to predictability. The case is R (Dharmeshkumar Bhupendrabhai P ...

In the High Court last month, Mrs Justice Moulder found that the Home Office had gathered partly unreliable intelligence in the course of an investigation into a college, breaching its right to peaceful enjoyment of its Tier 4 sponsor licence under Ar ...

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 President of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has found that the Home Office abused its power in forcing a college to expel a student and deliberately depriving him of a statutory right of appeal. The case has now been r ...

The Points Based System is notoriously complex and indecipherable. Initially I believe this was simply incompetence on the part of Home Office officials unable to communicate in plain English and ill equipped to design to and then adapt to the constan ...

“Technical”, “deeply unattractive”, “disingenuous”, “singularly lacks merit”, “ridiculous”, “inappropriate”, “extraordinary”. All words used by Elias or Vos LLJ to des ...

President McCloskey has firmly rejected the Home Office case against students alleged to have fraudulently obtained English language test certificate from ETS (“Educational Testing Services Ltd”) in the case of SM and Ihsan Qadir v Secr ...

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 ...

Back in the day, One Direction enjoyed considerable success and dominated the reported charts. Without a picture in the attic, though, good fortune and good looks cannot last forever. Decline is inevitable. It can be embraced with dignity but this elu ...

The Upper Tribunal has given judgment in a test case on ETS appeals and judicial reviews: R (on the application of Gazi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (ETS – judicial review) IJR [2015] UKUT 327 (IAC). It is essential reading for anyo ...

Having just finished drafting grounds for judicial review in a case involving a refusal of a Tier 4 study application on the grounds that the applicant was not a “genuine student” I was interested to see the new case of R (on the applicat ...

A new Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules (HC 198) corrects an earlier botched attempt to change the rules by fiat and remove discredited Educational Testing Services (ETS) as providers of the English language test needed for many modern im ...

This post has been contributed by, Vijay Jagadesham, who represented the College in Global Vision College Ltd v SSHD[2014] EWCA Civ 659. Readers would be forgiven for thinking that this question was clearly answered by the Supreme Court in the case ...

The rules governing the PBS are set out in the Immigration Rules and the appendices to those rules. These provisions have now achieved a degree of complexity which even the Byzantine Emperors would have envied. Source ...

Comes into force today. Clarifies that Tier 4 students on post graduate courses of 12 months or longer can sponsor family member dependants. TB screening introduced for those entering from Mauritania for over 6 months and TB screening only required ...

The Supreme Court has held the Points Based System’s sponsor licensing scheme is lawful. As Nicola Carter observes, sponsors may be disappointed with the result in R (on the application of New London College Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Hom ...

Short case reiterating that Home Office has to act in accordance with its policies, including that designed to give effect to the earlier Patel case on the situation of students whose college has its sponsor licence suspended or withdrawn. Outgoing Pr ...

ACCA not a degree says High Court Zane has suggested on Twitter he is appealing but this looks pretty authoritative, at least in cases that were decided before the Supreme Court decision in Alvi. Note that the claimant in this case, Syed, had to argue ...

The trend is continuing with the fairly recent Upper Tribunal decision of Basnet (validity of application – respondent) [2012] UKUT 00113 (IAC).  This concerns applications rejected as invalid specifically due to a non-payment of the applicatio ...

I recently acted in an appeal concerning a Tier 4 Student application in which the sole reason for refusal concerned the appellant’s English language ability.  Since April 2011 all degree–level students have been required to show knowledge of Eng ...

The latest case on fairness and the Secretary of State’s duty within the Points-Based System was published earlier last month.  Naved (Student – fairness – notice of points) [2012] UKUT 14(IAC) concerned a student applying for further leave to ...

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 ...