Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has announced that the government is to publish draft legislation in the early part of 2014, which could see the UK withdrawing from the Human Rights Bill. Read more...
Border officials who were suspended for links to terrorist suspects are suing the Home Office in the European Court of Human Rights because evidence in the case is being kept secret from them. Read more...
England has become the most crowded country in Europe according to new government data – and over the next 30 years the population of England is predicted to continue growing as a result of immigration and migrant births among the UK population. Read more...
The Department of Health has announced migrants who seek healthcare in A&E departments in England and Wales will be charged between £20 and £100 for a consultation, in a bid to slash the £2 billion NHS bill racked up by “health tourists” to the UK. Read more...
A mother of four children is alleging she has been left stranded in Pakistan after immigration officials in Islamabad stopped her from leaving the country to return to the UK. Read more...
Leader of UKIP Nigel Farage MP has said the UK should show compassion and take in Syrian refugees. Read more...
The United Nations (UN) has warned David Cameron that proposals in the UK’s new Immigration Bill currently going through Parliament could lead to harmful racial profiling of refugees and asylum seekers in Britain. Read more...
The owners of two restaurants in Potters Bar are facing fines worth thousands of pounds after Border Agency officials and local police detained restaurant workers for visa offences. Read more...
Conservative MP Nigel Mills has suggested the LibDem Business Secretary Vince Cable should resign, after Mr Cable referred to Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech while commenting on Tory immigration policies on Andrew Marr’s BBC1 show on Sunday (22/12/13). Read more...
Business Secretary Vince Cable has highlighted the potential positive impact of a new flux of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria in the New Year after insisting that a cap on European Union migrants will not happen. Read more...
Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable has responded to Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to cap the number of new migrants entering the UK every year by saying a cap is not going to happen. Read more...
An exclusion zone is to be set around central London landmarks and transport centres such as Victoria Station to prevent new migrants to the UK sleeping rough in these areas. Read more...
As the time for lifting the transitional controls on Romanians and Bulgarians draws near, the government is rushing through the addition of 100 new questions to the habitual residence test. Read more...
Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to announce that proposals to limit benefits to new migrants from Bulgaria and Romania will be introduced to coincide with the 31 December deadline when border restrictions will be lifted on two EU member states. Read more...
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said that a Home Office cap on EU migration numbers would be illegal – and a disaster for the UK economy. Read more...
A senior appeal judge has overturned the Home Office’s decision to deport a violent convicted criminal back to The Democratic Republic of the Congo because of fears he would face imprisonment or violence in his home country. Read more...
Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposals to curb benefits for new migrants have promoted a backlash from business in the UK. Read more...
A protestor who interrupted the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in April 2012 is likely to win his appeal to stay in the UK. Trenton Oldfield’s lawyer told an Appeal Court in London that separating him from his wife and baby would be a “disproportionate punishment” for his actions. Read more...
A protester that disrupted the University boat race last year will not face deportation after an immigration judge revealed that he was “valuable” to the UK. Read more...
Commons leader Andrew Lansley has denied allegations that the government has delayed reading the Immigration Bill until after the 31 December deadline has passed for lifting border restrictions on Romania and Bulgaria. Read more...
An election aide to Labour leader Ed Miliband has caused a backlash after using social media to announce that anti-immigration views in the UK leave him “depressed”. Read more...
A hotel in Manchester has been closed to the public to accommodate more than 100 asylum seekers, who arrived at 48 hours’ notice requiring emergency accommodation. Read more...
A report into a UK visa centre in Warsaw, Poland has found that visas for Ukrainian visitors to the UK are being approved at the rate of one every 10 minutes. Read more...
The European Union is to launch a surveillance system which will detect migrants trying to reach EU shores by boat. Read more...
Luke Johnson has spoken out in support of immigrant workers and entrepreneurs, saying that they contribute "disproportionately" to the UK economy and help to create jobs. Johnson is the former head of Pizza Express and is chairman of the Centre for Entrepreneurs. Read more...
A British woman is being forced to live apart from her Ecuadorian husband, despite having a 21-month-old daughter with him. Read more...
The Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Thomas, has called for tighter laws on the removal of criminals and illegal immigrants from the UK. Deportation laws are essential to ensure that illegal immigrants can be forced to return to their home countries. Read more...
EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Laszlo Andor, has said that the UK is in danger of becoming known as the “nasty” country of Europe, after Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled his proposals to curb access to benefits for new migrants to Britain. Read more...
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that benefits for migrants to the UK may be tightened up as part of a crackdown on “benefit tourism”. Read more...
Around 40 NHS health trusts are recruiting nurses from overseas to plug an estimated need for 20,000 nurses in the NHS. Read more...
Bulgarian Ambassador to the UK Konstantin Dimitrov has told The Telegraph newspaper that the Home Office has not rejected any applications to live and work in the UK from Bulgarian citizens in the last six years. Read more...
Bulgarian politician Konstantin Dimitrov has defended the legal right for foreigners to have access to the UK labour market and he predicts that only 8,000 migrants will travel to the country when visa restrictions are eased next year. Read more...
In an article, featured recently in the Observer, James Packer of Duncan Lewis, Keith Vaz MP (head of the home affairs committee) and barrister Colin Yeo (author of the influential ‘free movement’ blog) set out their concerns over the immigration appeals system. Read more...
Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to limit benefits to UK migrants has provoked a backlash in the Cabinet. Read more...
The Royal College of Engineering has said that a shortage of skilled workers in the UK needs to be addressed by allowing more migrants into Britain. Read more...
The High Court has ordered an urgent hearing of the case of a Nigerian asylum seeker on hunger strike, after refusing to release him on bail. Read more...
Three G4S employees have been referred for prosecution for contempt of court and forgery in respect of an appeal by an immigrant who was being deported from the UK. Read more...
Hungary has experienced a huge increase in the number of asylum claims being made in the country – although the authorities say they can cope. Read more...
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has responded to claims made by David Blunkett that the coalition government are “burying their heads in the sand” over the number of Roma communities which may move to the UK after borders are thrown open to Hungary and Romania on 1 January next year. Read more...
Prime Minister David Cameron has assured India on student visas after stating that “Britain is open for business” just days after scrapping a proposed £3,000 overseas bond policy for visitors from abroad. Read more...
Despite recent research that shows migrants to the UK have contributed £25bn to the economy since 2000, former New Labour Home Secretary and Justice Minister Jack Straw and Former Home Secretary David Blunkett have said that New Labour “got it wrong” when they opened up EU borders allowing Eastern European migrants to work without restriction in the UK. Read more...
The Home Office has announced proposals for fast-track entry into the UK, which would enable visitors to skip immigration queues by paying a fee up front. Read more...
A new study by University College London (UCL) has found that immigrants who arrived in the UK after the Millennium are less likely to have claimed benefits or live in local authority properties than other residents in the UK. Read more...
A pilot immigration scheme due to start this month has been scrapped by the government, after proposals to charge visitors from some Asian and African countries for visas prompted a backlash. Read more...
A spokesman for the UK’s home office announced that it will not send out any more vans pulling advertising billboards advising illegal immigrants to “go home or face arrest”. Read more...
Home Office immigration team catch visa overstayer during a sham wedding ceremony to EU national in Harrow, London. Read more...
Landlords could face physical danger by being asked to check the immigration status of their tenants, MPs have been told. Read more...
Four people have been arrested in Cambridgeshire during operations targeting illegal workers. Read more...
System ^in chaos^ as nearly half of enforced removals arecancelled, many of them after successful legal challenges Read more...
From 1st April 2013 the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act will end legal aid for foreign national prisoner (FNP) deportation appeals unless they seek to argue deportation would be contrary to the refugee convention or be a breach of article 3 ECHR. Read more...
Duncan Lewis represented SHH, a severely disabled Afghan who sought asylum in the United Kingdom. His application was refused and he appealed, unsuccessfully, to the First - Tier Tribunal. When he was also refused permission to appeal that decision to the Upper Tribunal Duncan Lewis appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’). The Court granted our application for an Order preventing the removal of SHH until they had decided his appeal. Read more...
The Detained Fast Track (DFT) has always been controversial from the legal advisors point of view: does it allow for sufficient advice and consultation with the client, and thorough consideration and collation of evidence in light of the serious nature of the application: the request by the asylum seeker for international protection for example. DFT was subject to consideration by John Vine as Independent Chief Inspector of UK Border Agency, whose report was published in February 2012, as well as numerous other bodies. Read more...