Free Movement Weekly Immigration Newsletter #34

Welcome to the weekly Free Movement newsletter!

David Bolt, the interim Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, recentlly published an update on the team’s work. There are two reports currently with the Home Secretary awaiting publication, those are the Country of Origin information report on Rwanda which was sent to her on 16 July, and an inspection of the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority which was sent on 7 August. Both are likely to make very interesting reading once published. 

Two new inspections were announced along with a call for evidence. The first is for “An inspection of the effectiveness, efficiency, and consistency of the Home Office’s management of fee waiver applications”. Delays are obviously one of the biggest issues in this area, but there will be other points to raise such as problems with using fee waiver tokens. The second inspection is “An inspection of the Border Force operation to deter and detect clandestine entrants to the UK”.

Reminder to anyone who needs it that OISC’s new code of standards is now in force, as of 1 September 2024. 

 On Free Movement, the last fortnight has seen the latest quarterly statistics published as well as a look at where we are at with the Expansion Worker route two years after it was opened. We also wrote up a useful entry clearance family reunion appeal and the latest development in the ongoing litigation involving the people on Diego Garcia. In another Upper Tribunal decision, an Afghan man who had been living in Ukraine and recognised as a refugee there before Russia’s invasion was unsuccessful in his challenge to exclusion from the Ukraine schemes. 

There have been anecdotal reports of a recent increase in refusal of Afghan and this, along with recent changes to two of the country policy information notes on Afghanistan, indicate a change in approach to these cases.

On the training side of things, our statelessness online course for members has been updated. We also have a new workshop limited to 14 places, Understanding international surrogacy in UK immigration law.

For everything else on the blog and elsewhere, read on.

Cheers, Sonia

What we’re reading

Illegal visa network making millions fleecing students – BBC News, 2 September

Immigration lawyers like us need more than warm words – Law Society Gazette, 19 August

Pope Francis: ‘To repel migrants … is a grave sin’ – The Hill, 29 August

Germany deports 28 Afghanistan nationals for first time since Taliban takeover in 2021 – Independent, 31 August

‘We sacrificed everything we had’: seasonal workers left without jobs after Home Office decision – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 24 August

Care Sector In “Precarious” State As Figures Show Overseas Worker Visas Plummeting – PoliticsHome, 22 August

Hundreds of modern slavery victims locked up in England’s prisons – OpenDemocracy, 21 August

Afghan women arrive in Edinburgh to finish medical degrees denied under Taliban – The Guardian, 21 August

UK government quietly suspends key scholarship for Afghan students – hyphen, 23 August

Self-Harm Rates in UK Immigration Centres Soar Following Report That Found ‘Worst Conditions Ever Seen’ – Byline Times, 19 August

Immigration Raids: An Anatomy of Racist Intimidation – Migrants’ Rights Network, 22 August

Dozens of illegal workers detained in immigration crackdown on ‘dodgy employers’ – Independent, 25 August