AEB v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1512 (18 November 2022) In this deportation case, Underhill, Nicola Davies and Stuart-Smith LJJ held that where, on an appeal from the First-tier Tribunal (FTT), the Upper Tribunal (UT) found that where the FTT’s decision involved an error of law, it would normally re-make the decision instead of remitting it to the FTT, unless it was satisfied that the error had deprived a party of a fair hearing before the FTT. Where the UT was so satisfied, it would normally remit the decision to the FTT. If the UT chose instead to re-make th ..read more

AAA v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rwanda) [2022] EWHC 3230 (Admin) (19 December 2022) The High Court has held that the SSHD’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their asylum claims determined there rather than in the UK was—in principle—lawful. However, in eight individual cases, the way in which the SSHD had implemented the policy was flawed. Her decisions in those cases would be quashed and remitted to her for reconsideration. These highly complex proceedings concerned eight conjoined claims, where the claimants—asylum seekers, charities and a home office of ..read more

Murugason v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 3160 (Admin) (14 December 2022)  Philip Mott KC has held that in section 2(1)(b)(i) of the Immigration Act 1971 a person who was a Citizen of the UK and Colonies (CUKC) by descent was only granted a right of abode in the UK if their parent had obtained that citizenship by either birth, adoption, naturalisation or registration in the United Kingdom, and the words “in the United Kingdom” apply to all four methods of obtaining citizenship. The court was of the view that the claimant Mr Indran Murugason’s father, who had ..read more

L3 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1357 (21 October 2022) In the case of “L3”, the Court of Appeal held that the SSHD had been entitled to exclude a Libyan national from the UK on the ground that he posed a threat to national security. The interests of his children, who had dual Libyan/British citizenship but had only lived in the UK for a relatively short time, did not outweigh the public interest in his expulsion. L3 appealed against a decision by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) rejecting his challenge to the respondent SSHD’s decision to exclu ..read more

R (Iyieke) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1147 (11 August 2022) The Court of Appeal has held that Mr Victormills Onyekachi Iyieke, who had applied for indefinite leave to remain (“ILR”) on the ground of 10 years’ continuous lawful residence in the UK and who had a period of overstaying in 2014 “book-ended” by periods of leave was not able to rely on paragraph 276B(v) of the Immigration Rules. It is notable that current overstaying and previous overstaying between periods of leave are referred to as “open-ended” and “book-ended” overstaying. Further ..read more

HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22 (20 July 2022) The three respondents—HA (an Iraqi), RA (an Iraqi) and AA (a Nigerian)—were “foreign criminals” for the purposes of section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007 and the SSHD was the appellant in the Supreme Court which dismissed the government’s appeals. In all three cases the SSHD ordered deportation and the First–Tier Tribunal had allowed the appeal from that decision. But the Upper Tribunal remade the FTT decisions by dismissing the appeal. Then the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal from the Upper ..read more

Marepally v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 855 (24 June 2022) In this appeal involving indefinite leave to remain (ILR) on the basis of 10 years’ continuous lawful residence and notices, the Court of Appeal held that Mr Marepally whose application for leave to remain had been rejected by a deficient notice, which failed to inform him of his right to appeal, could not rely on section 3C(2)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971 in order to extend his overall period of leave so that he accrued 10 years’ continuous lawful residence. Moreover, the failure to inform h ..read more

SC (Jamaica) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 15 (15 June 2022) The Supreme Court allowed the complex deportation appeal of “SC”, a Jamaican national born in 1991 who arrived in the UK in December 2001 and whose mother was a lesbian who was persecuted by gang members in Jamaica. SC and his mother were granted indefinite leave to remain (“ILR”) in the UK as refugees in October of 2003 because they had experienced violence, harassment and assault at the hands of gang members in Jamaica. SC had lived in the UK since his arrival and committed numerous criminal offences bet ..read more

The Secretary of State for the Home Department v Akter & Ors [2022] EWCA Civ 741 (27 May 2022) Upon the SSHD’s appeal, the Court of Appeal held that a case in which she had relied on generic evidence from Educational Testing Service to discharge the evidential burden of establishing that an English for International Communication certificate was obtained by fraud, the First-tier Tribunal had been entitled to give little weight to the conclusions of a 2019 report on English language certificates by an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) into that evidence. The SSHD was unhappy that the Up ..read more

E3 & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 1133 (Admin) (13 May 2022) Dismissing these judicial review claims, Mr Justice Jay held that in the event the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (“SIAC”) had made factual findings, in cases before it under appeal, that the SSHD had been wrong to make decisions depriving persons of their British citizenship pursuant to section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act 1981, then her subsequent withdrawal of deprivation decisions in similar cases had prospective effect only and did not render the original deprivation orde ..read more