Free Movement provides updates and commentary on UK immigration law, covering changes in policy, case law, and practical advice for practitioners and individuals navigating the UK immigration system.
Episodes
Immigration round-up: October 2026
In the latest round-up, Mala is back with Jasmine to discuss everything that happened in October.Jasmine looks at the latest trafficking statistics, which show a record number of referrals to the National Referral Mechanism. The success rate for reconsideration requests is still very high, too. We also talk through the proposed 'credibility test' for potential victims of trafficking in the
Immigration round-up: September 2026
The big news last month was statement of changes HC 584 which introduces a new form of relief for skilled workers who are recognised as victims of modern slavery, and makes changes to how section 3C leave is used, amongst other things. Jasmine covers the Immigration Advice Authority’s announcement that it is overhauling its competence assessments and explains how candidates can prepare for the cha
Immigration round-up: August 2026
Jasmine is back with Mala Savjani, partner at Wilsons Solicitors, for August's round up of immigration law news. Mala talks through the latest quarterly statistics which show immigration, asylum and citizenship numbers all falling, and why the Supreme Court found an illegal working civil penalty notice to be invalid. We discuss two important Upper Tribunal cases, one sets out what makes a good
Immigration round-up: July 2026
Isaac Abraham is back to join Jasmine for this month's episode. It's a bit of a longer one this month as we dedicated the first section to the big news that was the Immigration and Asylum Bill. Isaac has explained the bill's different parts and its passage through Parliament so far.Jasmine goes through the most recent statement of changes and then a number of cases, including a success
Immigration round-up: June 2026
In this month's round-up, Jasmine is joined by Mala Savjani, an associate solicitor at Wilsons. They cover the latest tribunal statistics, which make for grim reading as the asylum appeals backlog has climbed past 87,000 cases. With roughly twice as many cases coming in as going out, anyone lodging an appeal now faces a wait of close to three years.Mala then unpacks the judicial review challen
Immigration round-up: May 2026
This month, Jasmine is joined by Isaac Abraham, a solicitor at the Islington Law Centre. They discuss the King’s speech and the latest immigration statistics, which show a fall in net migration and asylum claims, but a steadily growing appeals backlog. The number of sponsor licence revocations has also shot up. Jasmine interviewed Luke Piper last month about the devastation this is causing to spon
Immigration roundup: April 2026
In the April round-up, Jasmine is joined by Mala Savjani, an associate solicitor at Wilsons. They cover April’s most significant developments, which includes a Court of Appeal decision on what past ill-treatment actually has to look like to amount to persecution, a landmark European Court of Human Rights ruling on returns to Afghanistan, and a High Court judgment looking at whether single hotel ro
Immigration roundup: March 2026
In the March round-up, Jasmine is joined by Chris Dias to discuss a new practitioner's guide to children's protection claims, whether policies to deter asylum seekers actually work and what happens when the Home Office grants settlement by mistake. They cover a number of cases including the latest in the Diego Garcia saga and the Court of Appeal's approach to deportation and subjective
Immigration roundup: February 2026
In the February round up, Jasmine and Barry discuss the Home Office's new pilot for children's asylum claims and dig into the latest immigration statistics. They cover some crucial advice for clients, including what to do if you're refused entry at the UK border, whether you can apply for settlement early to avoid the new ‘earned settlement’ proposals and how to fight a bank account cl
Immigration roundup: January 2026
In Sonia's final episode, we cover the first substantive judgment concerning the use of “public order disqualification” powers in trafficking cases, an updated CPIN on Pakistan for LGBT+ people and the policy that's pushing people in conflict zones to make dangerous journeys to enrol their biometrics.Barry covers a really important judgment on children's settlement applications (a cruc
Immigration roundup: December 2025
That's officially a wrap on 2025 as Sonia and Barry run through December's various happenings, including the final statement of changes for the year and our latest resources on the earned settlement proposals. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act is now in force and the latest tribunal statistics show that the Home Office's insistence on filling the appeals system with chall
Immigration roundup: November 2025
What a month. Sonia kicked off the podcast with a runthrough of the major policy proposals which came out in November, including the changes to refugee settlement periods and a look at the earned settlement proposals (though not in too much detail as she is doing a full webinar with Colin on the topic for Free Movement members on Wednesday 10 December at 11am). Barry had provided oral evidence to
Immigration roundup: October 2025
Our October round up is here! Barry does the honours thistime around with the statement of changes and Sonia foreshadows some bad news potentially coming next week. Barry shares an AI horror story that is really one for the ages (so far) after Sonia’s segment on the latest lawyers to fallfoul of AI hallucinated case citations. We also cover a new briefing on biometric excuses and predeterminations
Immigration roundup: September 2025
September brought us a new Home Secretary who immediately made some inaccurate comments about “last minute” legal challenges to removal and the modern slavery identification system, so Sonia looked at those in this month’s podcast. Sonia also covered the final act of the previous Home Secretary, which was the closure of the refugee family reunion route. Refugees do still haveother options, but wit
Immigration roundup: August 2025
Let's face it, August was a rough one and hopefully most of you managed to escape it for a summer holiday at some point, in which case you definitely need Sonia and Barry to help catch you up! The UK announced its new arrangements to return people arriving across the Channel to France, hotels used as asylum accommodation hit the headlines as far right protests hit the streets, and the latest i
Immigration roundup: July 2025
July was actually a fairly busy month! Join Sonia and Barry as they run you through what happened, including the changes to the skilled worker route, everything that happened on Afghan resettlement, recent changes to the EU Settlement Scheme and the latest instalment in a far too long running Palestinian case. An article from BID flagging up a really important change being proposed to cautions got
Immigration roundup: June 2025
Time for your June round up of all things Free Movement - and Barry is back! In this month's episode both Sonia and Barry divulge some rather niche interests, while discussing the second latest (!!) statement of changes, the Migration Advisory Committee's review into the minimum income requirement, the legal aid crisis (the increase was announced the day of recording) and impact on the tri
Immigration roundup: May 2025
May is over and the immigration white paper has finally been published, so Sonia spends a bit of time at the beginning of this month's podcast reliving the horrors of that. Andrew covers a very wide range of topics in this episode, from deprivation of citizenship to "self sponsorship" to deportation of EU nationals to visitors. Sonia goes on (yet another) rant about eVisas. If there is a potential
Immigration roundup: April 2025
It was a relatively quiet April ahead of what looks to be a busy May. Sonia is joined by Andrew again this month. Sonia runs through the amendments made at committee stage of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration one and despaired over the lack of attention given to the case where the UK detained a Brazilian tourist for eight weeks. Andrew looks at Asylum Aid's successful statelessness c
Immigration roundup: March 2025
This month Barry is away and so his colleague Andrew Jones has stepped up and stepped in to co-host with Sonia, and frankly made it all look rather easy. March was a busy one, and Sonia and Andrew rattled through a lot. There were some big decisions in the asylum world, including Wethersfield and an important one on asylum support and withdrawals. Sonia attempted to explain an incredibly complex t
Immigration roundup: February 2025
The February podcast is here! We kick off with Sonia briefly summarising the recently published statistics for 2024. There was then a lot to cover on asylum with several case updates and of course the recent Home Office changes to the good character requirements. Barry was thrilled to be able to discuss his favourite section of the British Nationality Act 1981 as well as getting to cover Alex Pile
Immigration roundup: January 2025
Sonia and Barry are back already to celebrate the end of January! There is a brief look back at 2024 and look forward to 2025 which of course now includes the new Bill (seriously what are we calling this thing for short? BSAIB just doesn't work, as Barry ably demonstrates). Sonia and Barry cover two of the recent Court of Appeal deprivation cases, as well as Asylum Aid's recent statelessne
Immigration roundup: December 2024
It’s goodbye to 2024 in this month’s podcast, with Sonia and Barry wrapping up December. They spend a bit of time discussing eVisas at the beginning of the podcast, before moving on to asylum and trafficking where issues around the quality of decision making have been raised in a couple of different posts.
Barry covered two Court of Appeal decisions on the EU Settlement Scheme as well as an Upper
Immigration roundup: November 2024
Barry returns and joins Sonia to run you through November on Free Movement. It was statistics galore for Sonia who covered the latest immigration, asylum and trafficking figures. A surprise statement of changes contained bad news for Colombians and Ukrainians. Barry was a really big fan of Colin's review of the latest Paddington movie and enthusiastically endorsed Alex Piletska's suggestion that t
Immigration roundup: October 2024
Colin's back! But for how long? All is revealed in our October roundup podcast. Plus Sonia and Colin discuss hot topics such as the new practice direction for appeals in the First-tier Tribunal, appeals backlogs, issues in asylum interviews and reaccreditation for the Law Society's immigration and asylum scheme.
We also cover the latest Supreme Court decision on the best interests of children, a
Immigration roundup: September 2024
In this episode of the podcast Barry does everyone a big favour by taking us through the autumn statement of changes in detail. Sonia and Barry also have a bit of a call to arms on discretionary grants of indefinite leave to
remain and tackling the ten year route. The importance of scrutinising country policy and information notes in asylum claims is covered over a few different articles. Barry go
Immigration roundup: August 2024
Barry joins Sonia again this month to look back at what happened in August. We cover the latest statistics on asylum, immigration and trafficking. There are a couple of cases relating to asylum family reunion, as well as a policy change for those separated during Operation Pitting. Other cases covered included deprivation of citizenship, an unsuccessful challenge to legal aid provision for young p
Immigration roundup: July 2024
It's August and Colin is away on holiday so Sonia was joined by a very special guest, Barry O'Leary, for the July roundup. Sonia and Barry discussed the end of the Rwanda scheme and the resumed processing of asylum cases, things not to do when carrying out an asylum backlog clearance, and the latest pause on decision making. They also cover the many EU Settlement Scheme cases that came out
Immigration roundup: June 2024
Here is your June round up of Free Movement. In this episode Colin and Sonia discuss why the Illegal Migration Act should be repealed, an appalling decision on trafficking delays, a much better decision on section 3C leave, the raised standard of proof in asylum claims, one and a bit cases on challenging judicial behaviour, the latest care home revocation case and much much more. By popular (?) de
Exploitation of overseas domestic workers
In this podcast Sonia discusses Kalayaan's new report "12 years of modern slavery" with Avril Sharp, immigration lawyer and policy officer. The report looks at the history of the overseas domestic worker visa, and the harmful changes that have made.
They also discuss the impact of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, delays within the National Referral Mechanism system for identify
Immigration roundup: May 2024
Here is your May round up of Free Movement. In this episode Colin and Sonia look at the latest immigration, asylum and trafficking statistics, including discussion of the fee waiver backlog. They also cover the latest on “safe
and legal” routes for those in Afghanistan and Gaza. Sonia nerds it up over archived Home Office guidance and we cover several new cases. The episode ends with a discussion
Immigration roundup: April 2024
In the April roundup Colin and Sonia cover the new Rwanda Act and the process for sending a person to Rwanda, challenges to the use of the inadmissibility process, the government's response to the increase in arrivals of Vietnamese nationals and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration's report into deprivation of British Citizenship.
We also look at cases including the
Immigration roundup: March 2024
In the March roundup, Sonia and Colin discuss the latest with Albanian cases as uncovered in the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration's report on asylum casework. We cover articles looking at recent changes to the Ukraine schemes, as well as a reminder of the existence of Hamid cases and how to avoid being on the receiving end of a telling off from the High Court. We also rec
Immigration roundup: February 2024
Your February roundup is here as promised. Colin and Sonia discuss Shamima Begum's latest appeal, the pause on some asylum cases, a run of decisions involving poor conduct on the part of either the Tribunals or the Home Office, as well as corporate transactions, the sudden closure of the Ukraine Family scheme and much more.
The 35 minute podcast follows the running order below.
Asylum (00:2
Immigration roundup: January 2024
Colin and Sonia have rounded up January 2024. We cover the government's claims to have cleared the 'legacy' asylum backlog and look at the three backlogs that have replaced it. We also discuss the latest in an increasingly long list of cases in which the Home Office has behaved poorly. We also cover everything else from gender based asylum claims, to new rules for business visitors and
Immigration roundup: December 2023
In our December 2023 round up, Colin and Sonia discuss the latest developments with Home Office evictions and withdrawals, as well as the new Rwanda legislation. We also cover the government's five point plan to reduce net migration as well as the latest case law and Tribunal statistics.
Asylum (01:00)
What is in the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill?
“These guarantees already e
Immigration roundup: November 2023
Our November roundup is here, where Colin and I cover the latest asylum and trafficking statistics, changes to the way late applications to the EUSS are treated, questions the SRA still hasn't answered, a couple of articles on Palestinians as well as quite a lot of case law.
Policy (00:45)
Assessing Braverman’s legacy as Home Secretary: Part Deux
Asylum (02:10)
Latest statistics show huge
Rwanda discussion and immigration roundup: October 2023
Our October immigration round up is here and we have also included discussion of the Supreme Court's decision in the Rwanda litigation. As well as that, Colin and Sonia covered everything from fishing to legal aid shortages via eSports, medico-legal reports, public funds and the shortage occupation list. We're still not entirely sure that either of us are pronouncing "refoulement"
Exploitation and the seasonal agricultural workers scheme
This week, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published an article on the exploitation of people in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme. It is a must read, and you can find it here: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-10-22/all-that-is-missing-is-a-whip-home-office-ignored-migrant-worker-abuses-on-farms
In this podcast, Jamila Duncan-Bosu of the Anti-Trafficking and Labour
Immigration roundup: September 2023
Our September roundup is here, featuring the latest statement of changes and new parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 being brought into force. We also discuss the Brook House inquiry, the Rwanda litigation, new immigration fees and illegal working fines and have an impromptu book club. Timestamps are below, the link to the quiz will be included when we post about this episode on Free Movement.
Immigration roundup: August 2023
Here is our August roundup, and the first podcast with Sonia both leading and at the editing helm (eek!). This month we cover statistics, illegal working fines, asylum support, homeless refugees, adult dependent relatives and some EUSS updates.
Following feedback from our reader survey, we have included timestamps below. We will also link directly to the quiz when we post on Free Movement about
Immigration roundup: July 2023
We are a bit behind the times this month, catching up from the summer. This time Sonia and I cover not one but two statements of changes, the Illegal Migration Act, asylum withdrawals, the massive increase in fees, several legal updates on the rights of EU citizens and a load of cases, including one from the Supreme Court on Palestinian refugees.
Statement of changes
Statement of changes HC 1715:
Immigration roundup: June 2023
This month Sonia and I discuss the Rwanda judgment (we're saving that to the end as our good news story), a couple of fairly lengthy immigration and asylum history blog posts I've been working on for a while, several asylum developments and also our Refugee Week content, some procedural updates, a bunch (carousel?) of cases and a few other things too. There's quite a lot to go over, s
Immigration roundup: May 2023
This month Sonia and I start with the Big Free Movement News (spoiler: Sonia is joining the team as the new Editor) and then cover a bunch of visa news and updates, a load of case law and several policy developments.
If you are a lawyer and would like to prove to your regulator you are keeping yourself up to date, make sure you remember to take our monthly course and quiz.
Immigration roundup: April 2023
This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin's suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, we run through a load of cases and end by talking about some business immigration issues.
If you would like to claim CPD points for readi
Immigration roundup: March 2023
For this month's roundup podcast, Sonia and I manage to rattle through a huge volume of updates in a mere 36 minutes. We cover a load of cases, some important asylum policy updates and then several developments in immigration law as well. We're sorry it is a little later than usual; the Easter holidays intervened. And I am sorry if you can hear scaffolders poles bouncing off the pavement o
Podcast special: the Illegal Migration Bill
Colin Yeo and Sonia Lenegan discuss the Illegal Migration Bill. They talk through what is in it, what will it do, how is it intended to work, whether it is compatible with international law and what effects it might have in reality.
Immigration roundup: February 2023
This month Sonia and I talk a bit about denaturalisation generally and the case of Shamima Begum specifically, we cover the new streamlined asylum process and a few other asylum-related blog posts and then we run through a few cases. We manage to keep things a bit shorter than normal, but watch out for our coverage of the Illegal Migration Bill, which will be available separately.
The 30-minute po
Immigration round up: January 2023
This month Sonia and I talk through various government policies all about being horrible to migrants. It's a seemingly inexhaustible vein. Indeed, there aren't many (any?) government immigration policies NOT about being horrible to migrants. We then move on to discuss a few different nationality law issues, including the mind-boggling case of Roehrig, which appears to have effectively denaturalise
Immigration roundup: a look back at 2022 and ahead to 2023
Colin and Sonia take a look back at 2022 and ahead to 2023 as well as covering the immigration updates from December 2022. Looking back, they talk about small boat crossings, the Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, the impact (or lack of) the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Rwanda judgment, the asylum backlog and the net migration figures. Looking to the future they cover Rishi Sunak's asylum pla
Immigration roundup: November 2022
This month, Colin and Sonia mainly talk about an avalanche of asylum related news, law and updates. It's not all asylum, though, there's also some blog posts to go over on Comprehensive Sickness Insurance, third party support in spouse applications, marriages in durable partner cases, the opening of the citizenship route for Chagossian descendants and a Solicitor Regulation Authority report on imm
Immigration roundup: October 2022
Welcome to the October 2022 episode of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month, Colin and Sonia talk politics, asylum, the statement of changes to the immigration rules and case law. The episode is a bit longer than usual as there was a lot going on!
Politics
Braverman attacks modern slavery victims and student families
Assessing Braverman’s legacy as Home Secretary&n
Immigration update podcast: September 2022
Welcome to the September 2022 episode of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month Colin is joined again by “immigration lawyer about town”, as she put it, Sonia Lenegan. She is in danger of becoming a co-presenter if she carries on like this...
Amongst other things, they discuss Albanian asylum claims, age assessment, military conscription and asylum, Windrush and an important upda
What the hell's going on with immigration policy right now?
Colin and Sonia have a short chat about what's going on with immigration and asylum policy right now. With Truss and No 10 saying one thing and Braverman and the Home Office saying something very different, what should we make of it all? Are we going to have more students or less? Encourage skilled workers or reduce net migration? Cut unskilled migration or expand the Seasonal Agricultural Workers
Immigration update podcast, episode 104
Welcome to episode 104 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month Colin is joined by "immigration lawyer about town", as she puts it, Sonia Lenegan. Taking pity on Colin after his solo effort last month, Sonia is the legal and policy director at Rainbow Migration, a consultant solicitor at Saltworks and a volunteer at Asylos and the Unity Project. She previously worked at Hackney
Immigration update podcast, episode 103
Welcome to episode 103 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month — the first in something like five years with no CJ McKinney — I’m starting with some material on asylum and trafficking then quickly going over a bit of immigration and nationality history and why it matters today, before moving onto various bits of Home Office news and then ending with a couple off items on deport
From Brexit to small boats: five dramatic years in UK immigration policy
The immigration system has been through a lot since I started covering it for Free Movement five years ago. In September 2017, the UK was still in the two-year countdown to leaving the European Union, and there were even doubts about whether it would happen at all. The EU Settlement Scheme was still a twinkle in the Home Office's eye, and instead of the exciting post-Brexit points-based immigratio
Immigration update podcast, episode 102
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
CSI where am I: can EU citizens get compensation for Comprehensive Sickness Insurance?
Comprehensive Sickness Insurance continues to hang over the heads of many EU citizens who, over the years, were told that they needed private health coverage for their residence in the UK to be lawful. The UK government’s insistence on this was always legally controversial, but it took until after Brexit for the EU Court of Justice to rule (in a case referred to it just before the UK’s departure)
Immigration update podcast, episode 101
Welcome to episode 101 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with some great news on fees, then some updates on the new Borders Act before turning to Rwanda and asylum more broadly. We have a quick check-in on business immigration and end on the latest with detention and bail.
If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podca
Things are looking up for undocumented migrant children
In the States, they’re known as “Dreamers”. Children and young people who grow up perfectly integrated, only to find out that — through no fault of their own — they’re actually unauthorised migrants. Here in the UK, children who are British in every sense but legal can at least regularise on the basis of long residence: seven years for under-18s, or half their life for those aged 18-24 inclusive.
Immigration update podcast, episode 100
Welcome to episode 100 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we’ve got some pretty major asylum stuff to go over plus quite a few different topics, including compensation for unlawful removal, the unending saga of the English language tests, new immigration fees, changes to work visas, a big case from the Upper Tribunal on expert evidence and a rather unusual case in t
Hotel Rwanda
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 hit the statute books yesterday. The Home Office says that the Act “puts into law that those who arrive illegally in the UK – who could have claimed asylum in another safe country – can be considered as ‘inadmissible’ to the UK asylum system”, and so removed to Rwanda under plans announced just before Easter.
In fact, as Jon Featonby tells me on the latest ep
Immigration update podcast, episode 99
Welcome to episode 99 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with statements of changes to the Immigration Rules on Ukraine, ten-year routes to settlement and the suite of new business visas. I then try not to get too cross about Comprehensive Sickness Insurance before turning to cases on small boats, the Home Office’s duty of candour (hah!) and human trafficki
Give me more enforcement powers, says Immigration Services Commissioner
The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner is changing. For one thing, there will soon be no office — or at least, not a physical one. The OISC is ditching its London headquarters and going fully remote, as well as regional. From 1 April, its staff will be assigned to a particular patch and told to get out into the community to find out what’s going on in the immigration advice world.
Th
Immigration update podcast, episode 98
Welcome to episode 98 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we’ve got a load of different topics to cover, from fees, investor visas and CSI to asylum, age assessments and appeals.
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 a
Russian it through: the sudden demise of the Investor visa
Closing the Investor visa route to new applicants with immediate effect was necessary, the Home Secretary said this week. If potential applicants had been given a decent period of notice, it might have attracted a last-minute flood of undesirables who “may not comply with the requirements of the Immigration Rules or who may pose national security risks”.
To which Sophie Barrett-Brown and Hazar El
Immigration update podcast, episode 97
Welcome to episode 97 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we cover quite a few different asylum issues, a bit on visas for social care workers, EU rights, marriages of convenience and finishing on the hot topic of citizenship deprivation.
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. The
When can the Home Secretary take your citizenship away?
One of the Home Secretary’s more startling powers is to take people’s British citizenship away where they acquired it by fraud or it is “conducive to the public good”. In the latter case, losing citizenship often amounts to exile in the interests of national security: the tactic is to wait until the person is abroad before making the deprivation order. Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, the p
Immigration update podcast, episode 96
Welcome to episode 96 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we’re covering December 2021 and we’ll go over some EU rights issues, a bit on deportation, a bit on asylum, touch on human rights and address some fascinating procedural issues of law.
If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Mov
Immigration update podcast, episode 95
Welcome to episode 95 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we cover some developments on EU citizens’ rights, several cases on immigration appeals, the latest work visa statistics, and then a few court and tribunal judgments on asylum, human trafficking and deportation. Our thanks to Iain Halliday who ably stands in for Colin this month.
If you would like to claim CPD points
Immigration update podcast, episode 94
Welcome to episode 94 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we kick off with some human rights developments and some fairly consistently good news on asylum (which is nice for a change). There are quite a few business immigration issues to run over quickly before we turn to developments in the English Channel and the international law of the sea for a nice, depressing ending
How do you prove you’re a gay refugee?
People being persecuted on account of their sexual orientation can seek asylum in the UK, but face having to convince the Home Office that they are in fact lesbian, gay or bisexual. While asylum seekers are no longer quizzed about Oscar Wilde, more subtle forms of stereotyping persist. Decision-makers can demand of all LGBTQI+ asylum seekers a narrative that only some can provide: feelings of sha
Immigration update podcast, episode 93
Welcome to episode 93 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast, a week later than advertised. This month we start with changes to the Immigration Rules and other news around work and student visas, and then the latest on deprivation of citizenship. We review some new case law on asylum, talk about why the Home Office is now conceding so many appeals, before ending on EU citizens’ rig
Podcast: fixing UK immigration advice
A woman went back to her husband who had previously been violent to her, and it was at least partly because she couldn’t find anyone to make her application for indefinite leave to remain under the domestic violence rules within the timescale required, and she panicked and went back him. So that means that a rule that’s expressly there to protect people from serious harm was left ine
Immigration update podcast, episode 92
Welcome to episode 92 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we begin with EU citizens’ rights before moving to a couple of cases on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights as it applies to migrants. We then discuss asylum, including a disappointing Supreme Court decision on age assessment, before concluding with the latest on immigration appeals.
If you w
Podcast: what now for Afghan refugees?
The UK’s emergency evacuation of Afghan civilians ends today, ahead of the 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan. Where does that leave Afghans hoping to escape the Taliban for safety in Britain? That’s the subject of this episode, in which I’m joined by two lawyers with extensive experience in this area: Jamie Bell of Duncan Lewis Solicitors a
Immigration update podcast, episode 91
Welcome to episode 91 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we begin with a Supreme Court decision on deportation and some developments on immigration judicial reviews. We then move to business immigration, where a new type of visa has just been announced, and then off in the other direction completely to cover asylum and refugee issues. We end with a couple of court decisio
Podcast: five things you may have missed in the Borders Bill
The Nationality and Borders Bill 2021 looks set to sail through Parliament, passing its second reading stage in the House of Commons this week by 101 votes. The headline provisions of the Bill are by now well known — indeed, notorious — so we’re not going to spend this episode rehearsing the various ways in which it tries to make life more difficult for asylum seekers. Instead,
Immigration update podcast, episode 90
Welcome to episode 90 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. We’re covering June 2021, which feels a little unreal given the Nationality and Borders Bill had landed shortly before we were due to record. But life goes on, and we’ve got a few points about the EU Settlement Scheme to cover; a couple of cases on family immigration and one on long residence; several asylum issues
