Free Movement
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Free Movement, created by Colin Yeo, provides updates and advice on immigration, EU, nationality, and refugee law. Staffed by immigration lawyers & experts.
Free Movement
2d ago
The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small boats or the back of ..read more
Free Movement
3d ago
The British National (Overseas) citizens immigration route opened on 31 January 2021. This article sets out the rules for the BNO visa scheme, including recent changes. The Home Office abbreviation is “BN(O)”, which we will use where it forms part of the official title of a route, but otherwise stick to the slightly less ugly ..read more
Free Movement
4d ago
The Public Accounts Committee has published a report “Asylum Accommodation and UK-Rwanda Partnership” in which it criticises the Home Office in both of these areas. By the end of March this year, spending on the Rwanda scheme had reached £240 million. The plan to open four large scale accommodation centres is expected to cost £1.2 ..read more
Free Movement
5d ago
Immigration law is constantly changing and the Home Office updates its guidance documents accordingly. Sometimes you will need to look at an older version of the guidance that applied at a certain time but it is no longer on GOV.UK as it has been replaced with the new version. When new guidance is published, important ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
After over two and a half years of children being held in inhumane conditions on Diego Garcia, the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territories has ruled that key safeguarding provisions of the 1989 Children Act apply to the territories. Background In September 2021, a group of Tamil asylum seekers had fled Sri Lanka ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
The Home Office has published statistics for the period January to March 2024 showing a marked drop in the grant rate for asylum cases, tens of thousands of EU Settlement Scheme applications rejected as invalid, and a fee waiver backlog that seems to be rapidly spiralling out of control. My full write up is below ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
In Onuzi (good character requirement: Sleiman considered) Albania [2024] UKUT 144 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal dunks on my old case of Sleiman: This certainly narrows down the available arguments in these citizenship deprivation cases. The Onuzi determination is a strange one, though. There’s no sign of recognition that the exercise the tribunal is supposed to ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
All successful applications for asylum or humanitarian protection in the UK result in the grant of five years leave to remain, on what is known as a “protection route”. People granted leave on a protection route are then eligible to apply for settlement on completion of those five years. Their applications for settlement are made ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter! Confusion reigned last week, so there is very little press coverage of the decision by the High Court in Northern Ireland that I can actually link to, but here is my brief write up in which I point out that the current Rwanda removals process is taking place ..read more
Free Movement
1w ago
A man who had lived in the UK for over 20 years and was married to a British national before the relationship broke down has been unsuccessful in his challenge to an entry clearance refusal on the grounds that he had not received the notice of curtailment. The case is Escobar v Secretary of State ..read more