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Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Reports are flooding in of an unheralded hike in visa appointment fees by outsourcing provider Sopra Steria. The Law Commission has published a 219-page report on simplifying the 1,100-page Immigration Rules: we read it so you don't have to. And no newsletter worth its salt would be without a Harry and Meghan take: we look at the immigration and nationality implications of a move abroad.

ON THE BLOG

New Home Office guidance on refusing settlement over tax discrepancies

By Nath Gbikpi on Jan 20, 2020 09:23 am

The Home Office has published specific guidance on settlement applications by migrants who previously held Tier 1 (General) leave and who declared different sets of earnings to the Home Office and HMRC. The document must be read alongside the more general guidance published in October, which covers the refusal of applications where the person has made a false representation. Background Since January 2015, the Home Office has refused around 1,700 settlement applications by people who declared a different income in their immigration applications as opposed to their tax returns, relying on paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules. Paragraph 322(5) states that an application for leave to remain should be refused...

Immigration update podcast, episode 72

By Colin Yeo on Jan 17, 2020 08:30 am

Welcome to episode 72 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with the excellent result on child citizenship fees and the Supreme Court’s clarification of the legal test in Zambrano cases. There are also interesting cases on investment visas, unlawful detention and deportation law to cover, as well some developments in asylum law. 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...

Visa appointment fees rise with no warning

By CJ McKinney on Jan 16, 2020 03:45 pm

The cost of appointments at visa application centres in the UK has risen with no warning given to applicants or their representatives. Sopra Steria, the outsourcing company that runs UK Visa and Citizenship Services, has hiked appointment costs from £60 to £69.99 for a standard appointment and from £125 to £135 for appointments on Saturdays or out of regular office hours. Solicitors John Vassiliou in Edinburgh, Bryony Rest in Newcastle and John Atkins in Exeter have all reported higher fees when attempting to book appointments for clients over the past 48 hours, so it appears to be applicable nationwide rather than to any particular UKVCAS centre. Reports of a sneaky...

No need to investigate treatment options for seriously ill migrants being removed

By Alexander Schymyck on Jan 16, 2020 08:00 am

AXB (Art 3 health: obligations; suicide) Jamaica [2019] UKUT 397 (IAC) is the latest in a series of cases which have tried to transpose the decision of Paposhvili v Belgium (application no. 41738/10) into domestic law. Paposhvili was an unusual case in which the applicant had died before the European Court of Human Rights ruled on whether his removal from Belgium would breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore the Strasbourg court focused on the procedural failings of the Belgian authorities, rather than addressing the central question of whether Mr Paposhvili would have been exposed to a breach of his Article 3 rights if returned to Georgia....

Is the hostile environment working?

By Nick Nason on Jan 15, 2020 11:08 am

In a review of Amelia Gentleman’s book The Windrush Betrayal, David Goodhart of the Policy Exchange think tank said this: Over … [the] period [2004-2018] the number of voluntary removals rose sharply from 3,566 in 2004 to 28,655 in 2016, perhaps some evidence that, despite Gentleman’s assertions, the hostile environment was working and was prompting people to leave voluntarily. At least until the Windrush scandal itself threw a spanner in the works—voluntary removals last year fell to just over 13,000. Mr Goodhart had made the same claim in a paper that he co-authored in 2018: the number of voluntary removals has increased from 3,566 in 2004 to 28,655 in 2016...

Law Commission calls for total rewrite of Immigration Rules

By Colin Yeo on Jan 14, 2020 09:00 am

The Law Commission’s long-awaited report on Simplification of the Immigration Rules says that rewriting and paring down the “overly complex and unworkable” document would improve legal certainty and transparency for applicants as well as save money for the courts and the Home Office. The Immigration Rules are the document that set out the precise criteria for granting or refusing permission to enter and remain in the United Kingdom. It is the single most important legal instrument for day to day immigration law. The dire drafting of the Rules has for some time been an acute source of frustration for individual applicants, the lawyers trying to help them and even the judges...

Court of Session clarifies time limits for judicial review challenges in Scotland

By Bilaal Shabbir on Jan 14, 2020 08:00 am

In Odubajo v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] CSOH 2, the Court of Session has ruled that the three-month time limit for raising judicial review proceedings starts on the date of the decision, even though the person affected may not have been notified of that decision. This is a departure from what everyone previously thought in Scotland – which was that you cannot be expected to challenge a decision until you have been notified of it.  In this case, Mr Odubajo had made fresh representations under paragraph 353 of the Immigration Rules. They were rejected on 5 June 2019. The petition for judicial review was not lodged...

Can Meghan Markle still get British citizenship if she and Prince Harry move abroad?

By Elijah Granet on Jan 13, 2020 01:00 pm

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, have dominated recent news headlines with their announcement that they intend to “balance” their time between North America and the UK, reducing the time spent on official royal engagements. This change of direction raises many questions, of clearly which the most important is: how will this affect Ms Markle’s citizenship plans?  Getting indefinite leave to remain Ms Markle’s previously indicated intention was to follow the five-year route to indefinite leave to remain (ILR), as laid out in Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules, followed by British citizenship. Once a British citizen, there is a good chance that Ms Markle...

WHAT WE'RE READING


Migrants and discrimination in the UK – Migration Observatory at Oxford University, 20 January

1/ Seems to be confusion about what happens after January 31 between the UK and EU – @stevepeers on Twitter, 19 January

Boris Johnson on collision course with big business groups as aides plan to ditch two-year hiatus before new immigration rules – Sunday Telegraph, 18 January

Brexit: UK has ruled out automatic deportation of EU citizens, says Verhofstadt – Guardian, 17 January

The concern regarding the rights and status of EU/EEA citizens & their dependents post Brexit *was never about deportations* – @the3million on Twitter, 17 January

ILPA’s response to the ICIBI’s Call for Evidence on the work of Presenting Officers – Immigration Law Practitioners' Association, 17 January

Shocking that @ukhomeoffice can't or won't say how many people seeking asylum were granted the right to work in 2019 – @RefugeeAction on Twitter, 16 January

Govt blocks refugee children being reunited with parents – Politics.co.uk, 15 January

Home Office launches legal battle to defend ‘unlawful and discriminatory’ hostile environment policy – Independent, 15 January

Boris Johnson rejects idea of creating UK department of immigration – Politico, 13 January

Bisexual client 'in fear for my life' after law firm hacked – RollOnFriday, 10 January

FORUM UPDATES

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