News

Jun 23, 2019 - Upper Tribunal has the right to cancel the decision on permission for judicial review of the immigration case

The Court of Appeal confirmed that the Upper Tribunal has the same powers as the High Court and can overturn the decision to grant permission for judicial review. In case of  R (Singh) v EWCA Civ 1014, Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019], the Upper Tribunal cancelled the previously granted permission for judicial review of the case, because the Home office was unable to attend the hearing due to a misunderstanding of the parties.

Jun 23, 2019 - The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that "Surinder Singh" visa category applies to extended family members of EU citizens

The Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of Banger (EEA: EFM - Right of Appeal) [2019] UKUT 194 (IAC) ruled out that extended family members of EU citizens have the right to file visa applications under "Surinder Singh" route. The court also confirmed that such applicants can either lodge appeal against the decision of Home Office or start judicial review.

Jun 18, 2019 - The Supreme Court found that the UK violated the residence rights of hundreds of thousands of Europeans from A8 countries

On 19 June 2019, The Supreme Court dismissed the Home Office’s appeal in the case of Gubeladze [2019] UKSC 31. This decision affects the interests of a large number of EU citizens from the so-called “A8” countries, who joined the European Union in 2004. These include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

When new countries join the EU, self-employed workers from these countries have direct access to the labour market in other member-countries. However, the same does not apply to employed workers or employees. By law, existing EU members may imp...

Jun 13, 2019 - Home Office loses half of all immigration appeals

New statistics published by the Ministry of Justice shows that the percentage of successful appeals for the applicants is the highest in the entire history of keeping the records. Applicants won more than 50% of appeals to the Immigration Tribunal in the past financial year. Most of them were appeals against the decision of the Home Office to refuse the applicant to stay in the UK.

Last year 58% of Human Rights appeals and 50% of EEA Free Movement appeals were won. However, appeals in the area of asylum seeking were less successful.

In 2018/2019 the court decided on approximately 45,000 cases....

Jun 06, 2019 - Bona fide travellers will be able to obtain Schengen short stay visas in simplified way

The EU Council adopted amendments to reform the current visa procedures for those, who intend to travel to the EU for touristic purposes. New rules will also contribute to the fight against illegal migration.

New rules will allow for faster and easier procedures for those traveling legally. In particular, the visa application can now be submitted six months (instead of the current three months) prior travelling  and no later than 15 days before the start date of the trip. It will also be possible to fill out and sign the application in electronic format. In addition, frequent travellers with p...

May 29, 2019 - Update on Innovator visa, May 2019

End of an era or the true hardship of the Innovator visa route

The new innovator and start-up visas went live on 29 March 2019 to replace the Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) route, which is now closed to new applicants, and the Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) route, which will close from 6 July. The word from practitioners is that so far there have been no applications made, as there is a lot wrong with the new innovator visa route.

The new innovator route was long expected and was deemed to be a nice idea, in particular in the light of the Migration Advisory Committee’s 2015 review of entrepreneur visa....

May 28, 2019 - NAOs report: Home Office have forcibly removed innocent students from the UK after being accused of cheating during English language tests

The National Audit Office, NAO, published a report on the results of an investigation of fraud during English language tests, which were used for visa purposes, namely in order to obtain Tier 4 visas. In 2014, BBC Panorama published a video from several testing centres showing obvious systematic fraudulent actions of students while sitting TOEIC exam (Test of English for International Communication). Following the scandalous video Home Office together with Educational Testing Service (ETS) started investigation and accused more than 34,000 foreign students of cheating while taking English test...

May 23, 2019 - Exemption from NHS charges are not applicable for those who submitted Human Rights visa applications

In court case R (ERA) v Basildon And Thurrock Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWHC 1249 (Admin), the judge considered whether an applicant who submitted an immigration application based on human rights could be exempted from paying NHS fees, as it is in the case with asylum seekers.

According to the 2015 NHS Regulations, hospitals may charge foreign visitors for medical services. Exceptions are only applicable to those who have applied for temporary protection, asylum or humanitarian protection in accordance with Immigration Rules.

The applicant in this case is a Ghanaian citizen, who su...

May 21, 2019 - Failure to provide payroll documents will result in Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa extension refusal

The court in the case of R (Khajuria) v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1226 ruled that the failure to provide PAYE documents in the required format would lead to the refusal of entrepreneur's visa extension applications even if the required number of jobs have been created.

One of the main requirement to extend Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa is to create at least two 12-month jobs during initial stay. The applicant, Mrs Khajuria, met this requirement. She created several part time jobs, which were equivalent to two full time positions. Since the salaries of her employees were low, the company did not provide payr...

May 16, 2019 - UK government scraps passenger landing cards

As mentioned before in our previous news the UK government abolishes the need to fill in paper landing card for international passengers arriving at points of entry in the UK including airports, seaports and Eurostar terminals from 20 May 2019. It was previously announced that the changes would only affect citizens from the United States, Australia, Canada, South Korea and Japan. Nevertheless, the government decided not to limit it to this list and scrap landing cards for all foreigners to help solve the problem of the growing number of passengers arriving in the UK.

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