As reported last week, the Irish High Court has held that the decision to put the UK on the list of safe third countries to return people seeking asylum to has been held unlawful. The case is A & anor v The Minister for Justice, Ireland and the Attorney General & anor [2024] IEHC 164
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Chief Inspector’s report on the social care sector finds issues with sponsor licences and compliance
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report An inspection of the immigration system as it relates to the social care sector’ has been published and has identified some serious shortcomings in the sponsor licence process for the sector, while noting that the Home Office has started putting systems in place to address…
Charities included in proposed major increase to OISC registration fees
A consultation has been launched by the Home Office on a major increase to OISC registration fees. The deadline for responses is 5 June 2024. Fees currently bring in around £1.3 million and the OISC costs around £2.2 million to run. The increase is intended to close that gap so that the scheme is self-funding.
The…
Two Hamid referrals made in asylum cases where out of hours injunctions were sought
The High Court has heard three Hamid referrals, two of which concerned asylum cases and one of those resulted in a referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Given the professional implications, any practitioner reading this should already be well aware of the Hamid jurisdiction, which is essentially a disciplinary process that can result in a…
Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #12
It looks like the next time we will see the Rwanda Bill is Monday 15 April, which the government is presumably fine with despite noises to the contrary given a) it isn’t going to stop people coming, b) Rwanda isn’t ready yet, and c) they don’t seem to have any way of…
Withdrawal Agreement cannot help woman who made wrong type of family permit application says Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal has upheld the Upper Tribunal’s decision that those who applied for the wrong type of family permit before the end of the Brexit transition period cannot benefit from the EU Settlement Scheme or the EU Withdrawal Agreement.
The decision is Siddiqa v Entry Clearance Officer [2024] EWCA Civ 248. The…
Upper Tribunal dismisses appeal from Iraqi man who pretended to be Iranian in previous asylum claim
Sonia Lenegan
Sonia Lenegan is an experienced immigration, asylum and public law solicitor. She has been practising for over ten years and was previously legal director at the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association and legal and policy director at Rainbow Migration. Sonia is the Editor of Free Movement.
Sentencing Council opens consultation on its new guidelines for immigration offences
This week the Sentencing Council published new draft sentencing guidelines for immigration offences within the Immigration Act 1971 and Identity Documents Act 2010. This includes offences expanded by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. Previously, there had been no formal guidelines for these offences.
The draft guidelines have been published for consultation, a process open…
Job Ad: Paralegal Role at Wesley Gryk Solicitors LLP
More increases to application fees, including passports and Appendix FM
Schedule 1, Table 1 of the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018OldNew1.1.2 Application for a visit visa for a period of two years where the fee at 1.1.8 (Chinese visit scheme) does not apply£400£432Schedule 2, Table 6 of the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 20186.2.6B Application for limited leave to remain in the United…