IMMIGRATION

A compilation of top content on UK immigration law and policy, updated weekly.Revealed: Suella Braverman sets Home Office ‘No boats crossing the Channel’ target – Guardian, 10 SeptemberFreelance journalist Nicola Kelly on reporting on the UK Home Office – Journalism, Home Office policies take centre stage in modern-day Antigone adaptation – Guardian, Truss scraps proposed British bill of rights – Financial Times, I’m told by a Home Office source that civil servants got no parting message from Priti Patel, not even a brief thanks for their work. Apparently this is v unusual for a parting home sec. Quite telling of Patel’s relationship with and treatment of her staff while she was in office. – @maybulman on Twitter,High Court challenge over Rwanda policy du...

Our anonymous contributor considers the non-availability of legal aid in the context of a recent Afghan case, and what the future holds for legally aided immigration advice. Sara was in Kabul when the Taliban entered the city. Her husband, Hassan, a British national, was in the UK, working towards the Minimum Income Requirement for her spouse visa. He had not worked for long enough in order to make an application by the time the Taliban arrived. Sara was therefore alone, looking after Yacoob, their severely disabled son, born with a congenital heart defect and constantly in and out of hospital. She was 6 months pregnant with their second child. The application for Yacoob’s British passport had been stuck with HMPO for several months.  Hassan was an old client, and I ...

The government’s new rules on inadmissibility in asylum claims have come into force and now apply to asylum claims made on or after 28 June 2022. These rules set out the circumstances where an asylum claim will be put on hold while the Home Office tries to remove the asylum seeker to some other country for their claim to be considered there, instead of in the United Kingdom. The new rules provide broader grounds for treating asylum claims as inadmissible. The declared policy behind the new rules is intended to encourage asylum seekers to make a protection claim in the first safe country they reach. In reality, the effect may well be simply to increase delays in the asylum process with minimal removals to safe third countries actually taking place. For definitions of...

By Alison Harvey Does exploiting a domestic worker through human trafficking and modern slavery constitute “exercising” a “commercial activity” for the purposes of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 such that it falls within the exception to a diplomat’s immunity from civil suit? When this arose several years ago in Al-Malki v Reyes [2017] UKSC 61, the Supreme Court did not find it necessary to decide the question. Basfar v Wong [2022] UKSC 20, decided today, raised the issue again. Ms Wong, a migrant domestic worker, brought an employment tribunal claim for wages and breaches of employment rights against Mr Basfar, a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission of the...Home Office to offer extensions to people denied settlementBy Bilaal Shabbir The Home Office has p...

Page contents Facts in briefThe judicial reviewThe dispute on costsThe court’s judgment on costs In a reasoned determination on costs, the High Court has found that a judicial review brought by seven West Midlands councils over unfair allocation of responsibilities for housing asylum seekers did not have a causal link to the eventual change in Home Office policy in this area. The case is R (City of Wolverhampton Council and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1721 (Admin). Facts in brief At the heart of the claim was the system for procuring accommodation for asylum seekers under section 95(1) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The system had for a long while involved agreements with local authorities across the UK – meaning that...

https://anchor.fm/free-movement/embed/episodes/Immigration-update-podcast--episode-102-e1kvduk Welcome to episode 102 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with elements of the Borders Act 2022 coming into force before moving on to Appendix Private Life and Appendix FM. We then review the latest case law on criminal deportation, touch briefly on Zambrano applications, and conclude with Rwanda. If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are now over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here. If you listen to podcasts on your mobile phone, you can subscribe for free on ...

Past lack of Comprehensive Sickness Insurance is no longer an issue for EU nationals trying to get their British citizenship, revised Home Office policy says. As we discussed on the podcast only recently, certain EU citizens (principally those here as students or self-sufficient) have been penalised for not having private health insurance pre-Brexit. The issue notably arose in British citizenship applications, with two separate policies highlighting CSI as a reason to refuse naturalisation.  But the Home Office has now updated a third document, the Form AN guidance, to say that CSI is in fact a non-issue: people who did not hold comprehensive sickness insurance under the EEA regulations whilst either a student or a self-sufficient ...

Past lack of Comprehensive Sickness Insurance is no longer an issue for EU nationals trying to get their British citizenship, revised Home Office policy says. As we discussed on the podcast only recently, certain EU citizens (principally those here as students or self-sufficient) have been penalised for not having private health insurance pre-Brexit. The issue notably arose in British citizenship applications, with two separate policies highlighting CSI as a reason to refuse naturalisation.  But the Home Office has now updated a third document, the Form AN guidance, to say that CSI is in fact a non-issue: people who did not hold comprehensive sickness insurance under the EEA regulations whilst either a student or a self-sufficient ...