News
The government released statistics regarding immigration and asylum. The figures show that work applications from the eight accession countries have continued to fall in 2009. In the second quarter of this year there were 26,150 applications from workers in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and the Czech Republic - down from 46,070 in the same period in 2008. In the first half of 2009, 30,435 people illegally in the United Kingdom were removed or voluntarily departed from the country, including 2,550 foreign prisoners. The latest figures also confirm that a total 67,980 people were removed or voluntarily departed in 2008. The numbers of individuals seeking asylum in the United Kingdom has remained broadly at the same level over the past four years. It is less than a third of the level when it peaked in 2002. Applications for asylum in the second quarter of 2009 were 6,045 compared with 5,830 in quarter two 2008. The Home Office is now concluding 60 per cent of new asylum cases within six months, click here.
Cases
The Tribunal in MI (Hazara, Ismaili, associate of Nadiri family) Afghanistan CG [2009] UKAIT 00035 (27 August 2009) find that a person of Hazara ethnicity or of the Ismaili faith or who is associated with the Nadiri family is not likely to be at a real risk of serious harm in Afghanistan by reason of any of these factors alone or a combination of any of them, although different considerations would apply if an Ismaili's own home area were to be in an area controlled by the Taliban, given the large scale massacre of Ismailis which took place when the Taliban took over the province of Baghlan in 1998. Such individuals would ordinarily be safe in Kabul, click here.
In BF (Portugal) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 923 (28 July 2009) the Court of Appeal considered European Union law, serious crimes and deportation. The proper approach was, ruled Jacob LJ, to determine (1) what was the relevant personal conduct of the person facing expulsion? (2) whether that conduct represented a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to society and, if so, (3) whether that threat affected one of the fundamental interests of society. Then the Tribunal should stand back and consider (4) whether the deportation of the respondent would be disproportionate in all the circumstances. He added that, as to the judicial duty to give reasons, it is not sufficient for a tribunal to recite all the pieces of evidence and then state a bold conclusion.
In TF (Angola) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 905 (15 July 2009) Elias LJ in the Court of Appeal found that a minute from a Home Office file recording the reasons for a grant of exceptional leave to remain had to be read alongside a decision letter in the same case. If the minute clearly stated a concluded view of the Secretary of State as to the credibility of an asylum seeker then it would not be appropriate for the immigration judge to revisit that issue.
In a European Community law case involving the Ankara Agreement, Dobbs J in the Administrative Court in Ahlat (R on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWHC 2166 (Admin) (29 July 2009) noted that the guidance regarding "extension of stay switching - non-fraudulent cases" could be accepted as showing that a claimant can take advantage of the standstill clause as an overstayer, but that that section also makes clear that applicants who do not meet the requirements of paragraphs 4 and 21 of the 1973 rules HC510 should be refused: in this regard paragraph 4 of HC510 clearly does not purport to set out what all the relevant facts could be in a particular application, and even if the formal requirements are met, a person can be refused leave.
In KD (Ivory Coast) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWCA Civ 934 (14 May 2009 Pill LJ in the Court of Appeal found that there were very substantial Article 8 considerations in favour of an individual who had spent nearly the whole of his life in this country, and so dismissed the Home Office's challenge to a determination allowing an appeal against deportation.
Events
On Monday September 14 from 16:00 to 18:00 (2 CPD hours) Nadine Finch and Colin Yeo are presenting a course on Representing Children and Families and Questioning Childhood: Disputing Age Assessments, at 1 Liverpool Street, London EC2M 7QD.
To book via HJT Training, click here.
ILPA and HJT Training remind our practitioner colleagues that the launch of the "Compilation of Immigration and Asylum Policies of the Home Office" takes place at Garden Court Chambers on 7 September 2009 from 6:30 pm. The compilation is in two volumes (Volume 1: Regular Migration Under the Immigration Rules; Volume 2: Asylum and Other Forms of Protection; Enforcement Action), click here.
HJT Training announced their autumn season of courses, click here.
