Immigration Update 15 February 2020

A summary of the latest developments in Immigration law between 8 February 2020 to 15 February 2020.

Case Law:

Tahir Yaseen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 157 (14 February 2020)

Long residence refusal – Indefinite Leave to Remain – tax discrepancy – Paragraph 276B(ii) and paragraph 322(5) – similar tests – difference between “deliberately false information” to avoid paying significant amounts of income tax and “minor tax errors” – spectrum – Balajigari and Mujumber consideration – where earning discrepancy amounting to dishonesty is proven – Discrepant tax returns are strong evidence of crime – a balancing exercise is “good practice” and its absence may be an error of law: see paragraph 38 of Balajigari – Allowed.

Hussein v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 156 (13 February 2020)

EEA Appeal – deportation – whether the Appellant had ten years continuous residence to bring Regulation 21(4) of 2006 EEA Regulations – imperative grounds of public security – whether deportation was justified on “serious grounds of public policy or public security” under Regulation 21(3) – criminal convictions and periods of imprisonment do not automatically disqualify an individual from enhanced protection, but they do have a negative effect – custodial sentence is in general indicative of a rejection of societal values and thus of a severing of integrative links with the host state – Repeated offending attracting a series of custodial sentences of more than trivial length is even more indicative of the same thing – dismissed imperative grounds – allowed on serious grounds and remitted to UT.

ZA (Pakistan), R (On the Application Of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 146 (12 February 2020)

Unlawful detention – payment of compensatory damages as opposed to nominal damages – dismissed

Jalloh, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 4 (12 February 2020)

Meaning of imprisonment at common law and whether it should, or should not, now be aligned with the concept of deprivation of liberty in article 5 of the ECHR – enforced not voluntary compliance – dismissed

Guidance:

Country Guidance:

1. Albania: country policy and information notes
2. Vietnam: country policy and information notes
3. China: country policy and information notes
4. Ethiopia: country policy and information notes

General Guidance:

1. Applying for a UK visa: approved English language tests
2. Inspection report published: Inspection of Country of Origin Information, June 2019
3. Interviewing suspects
4. Transparency data: Country returns guide

News:

1. Jamaicans deported by Home Office go into hiding fearing for lives
2. Points-based immigration system will be in force by 2021, No 10 says
3. Women for Refugee Women report examines asylum-seeking women’s experiences of destitution in the UK
4. Boy refused medical help by Heathrow border staff, father says
5. Amnesty International UK expresses concern over Government’s “cruel” deportation flight to Jamaica
6. ‘I’ve been ripped from my family’: deportee struggles to cope in Jamaica
7. ‘At home I feared the war. Here I feared the Home Office’: the female refugees left destitute in the UK
8. Home Office asks 101-year-old Italian man to get his parents to confirm his identity
9. Deportation flights for 37 people cost Home Office £443,000
10. Steve Bell on the Jamaica deportation flights
11. Woman cleared of assaulting Yarl’s Wood guards during struggle
12. The government has learned its Windrush lesson – it can deport who it likes
13. What is judicial review and why doesn’t the government like it?
14. Minister defends Jamaica deportation flight decision