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24.03.2020 - Coronavirus and the UK immigration system (as of 24 March 2020)

UK visa application centres

Outside the UK

VFS Global, which runs many of the UK visa application centres aboard, has a dedicated coronavirus page listing the ones which have closed. As of 24 March 2020, it reports that:

UK has stopped accepting visa applications in Wuhan (China), Gurugram and North Mumbai (India), Kingston (Jamaica), Kuwait City (Kuwait), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Lima (Peru), the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Miami, San Francisco and Seattle (USA), Caracas (Venezuela), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Bogota (Colombia) , Miami (USA) , Gurgaon (I...

23.03.2020 - Coronavirus and the UK immigration system (as of 23 March 2020)

Visa extensions and other concessions

Particularly pressing is the situation for people who are in the UK on an expiring visa and unable to leave because of travel restrictions. Government guidance on this on currently focuses on Chinese citizens and residents of China stuck in the UK, as they were most affected at the time that guidance was first published, in mid-February 2020.

At time of writing, that guidance had not been updated to cover other nationalities. Senior Home Office officials told the Home Affairs committee of MPs on 18 March that it soon would be, on the general principle of “

20.03.2020 - Leave in a time of coronavirus: can the Home Office grant blanket visa extensions?

With international travel closing down due to the coronavirus it is becoming not just unwise but impossible to move from some countries to others. Even if inbound flights are not banned by a country, airlines are finding it increasingly difficult to keep flights going anyway. This raises the question of what happens to people trapped outside their country of nationality. If their visas are coming to an end, do they need to apply to extend them and, if so, on what basis?

Visitors and students at the end of their course would normally have no legal basis to extend their stay in the UK. Making a ...

20.03.2020 - The Chancellor has set out a package of temporary, timely and targeted measures to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19.

Here are the main points from the UK government measures to support businesses including:

  • the government will step in to help pay people's wages through a coronavirus job retention scheme 
  • Businesses can apply for a grant of up to £2,500 a month to cover 80% of salary for those retained but not working
  • VAT for all businesses is being deferred until the end of June and the business loan scheme will now be interest free for 12 months
  • Universal Credit allowance increases £1,000 a year
  • grant funding of £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with property with a...

19.03.2020 - Grant of limited instead of indefinite leave does not generate human rights appeal

In Mujahid [2020] UKUT 85 (IAC), President Lane holds that where a person applies to the Home Office for indefinite leave to remain and is refused indefinite leave but granted limited leave instead, that decision is not a refusal of a human rights claim as defined at section 82 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Therefore there is no statutory right of appeal against the decision.

This is despite the initial application, which was refused after all, being treated as a human rights claim. If a challenge is to be brought, it would have to be a judicial review.

The outcome is no...

19.03.2020 - 300 people turned down by EU Settlement Scheme

The EU Settlement Scheme statistics for February 2020 are out. They show 300 refusals. The Home Office told that the increase is mainly due to refusals for eligibility, not over criminality.

The two core reasons, the Home Office says, for the jump in refusals are: 

  1. Failing to provide eligibility evidence, either at the application stage or in reply to requests from the Settlement Resolution Centre.
  2. Non-EEA/Swiss family members failing to evidence their relationship to the EEA/Swiss sponsor. This could include failing to provide a marriage certificate or not possessing the relevant doc...

19.03.2020 - Bank of England cuts interest rates to all-time low of 0.1% due to coronavirus.

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to an all-time low of 0.1% in a further emergency measure to try and limit the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A week ago, the Bank of England cut in rates to 0.25% to help businesses and individuals cope with the economic damage caused by the coronavirus.

The decision to reduce the base interest rate again is an additional emergency measure designed to reduce the economic challenges presented by the coronavirus Covid-19.

It will also buy an additional £200bn of UK government and corporate bonds with an effort to lower the cost of borrowi...

18.03.2020 - Family life: substance over form

Uddin v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 338 is an important case in which the outgoing Senior President of Tribunals provides the judges who serve in his Immigration and Asylum Chamber with very strong guidance on mixed credibility findings and the assessment of family life.

Placed in foster care in the UK

Mr Uddin is a citizen of Bangladesh who was abandoned in London in 2013, aged 13. He was placed with foster carers by the local authority. The Home Office refused him asylum but granted leave to remain on the basis of his age. 

He then applied to extend his leave o...

16.03.2020 - Long waits for visa documents may give rise to compensation

The Home Office may have to pay compensation in the case of major blunders, the Court of Appeal has said in a significant new ruling, Hasson v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 329.

Challenging an impressive new low by the Home Office, Mr Hasson sought compensation after being left waiting 25 months for a biometric residence permit (BRP) confirming his right to live and work in the UK.

On 20 May 2016, the Home Office sent the Mauritian citizen a letter confirming he had been granted leave to remain in the UK until 20 November 2018, promising his BRP would be sent withi...

13.03.2020 - Genuine chance of being engaged test for retaining EU worker status found unlawful

EU citizens do not have to prove that they have a “genuine chance of being engaged” in order to retain worker status under European Union law, the Upper Tribunal has held. The case is KH v Bury MBC and SSWP [2020] UKUT 50 (AAC).

Martin Williams of the Child Poverty Action Group brought the case on behalf of KH, a Polish citizen. KH needed to prove that she retained the status of worker after being unemployed for over six months, in order to keep her housing benefit. Standing in her way were the EEA Regulations, which provide (in both the 2006 and 2016 versions) that someone in this position mu...

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