Free Movement

We are a bit behind the times this month, catching up from the summer. This time Sonia and I cover not one but two statements of changes, the Illegal Migration Act, asylum withdrawals, the massive increase in fees, several legal updates on the rights of EU citizens and a load of cases, including one from the Supreme Court on Palestinian refugees.

Statement of changes

Statement of changes HC 1715: visa regime imposed on Dominica, Honduras, Namibia, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu

Statement of changes HC 1496: asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, and restrictions on students

Asylum

The Illegal Migration Act 2023: what has changed?

Briefing: why and how is the Home Office treating more asylum claims as “withdrawn”?

What safe and legal routes are available for refugees to come to the United Kingdom?

OISC

OISC amends judicial review practice note to prevent advisers conducting litigation

EU

New law confirms British citizenship for children of EU citizens born in UK before 2 October 2000

How does absence from the UK work under the EU settlement scheme?

A glitch or a feature? Systemic problems with digital proof of immigration status

Immigration

Massive increases to immigration fees announced

Briefing: the rules on returning residents with indefinite leave to remain (ILR)

Points Based System

How to apply for a Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker visa

Cases

Supreme Court finds exclusion of Palestinians from resettlement scheme not unlawful

Asylum seekers don’t need ‘direct evidence’ they’re being covertly monitored

‘Minded to cancel’ process applies to dishonesty allegations at the UK border

Airport detainee wrongly denied a solicitor in immigration interview

Upper Tribunal reminds parties to identify the issues in an appeal

Tribunal must consider Home Office decisions in full even when not explicitly relied on by representative

High Court rejects challenge to EU Settlement Scheme dependency rules for children

Upper Tribunal rules post-Brexit Zambrano appeals can continue

Home Office withdraws objective evidence test for trafficking decisions

This month Sonia and I discuss the Rwanda judgment (we're saving that to the end as our good news story), a couple of fairly lengthy immigration and asylum history blog posts I've been working on for  a while, several asylum developments and also our Refugee Week content, some procedural updates, a bunch (carousel?) of cases and a few other things too. There's quite a lot to go over, so we're just highlighting some of it rather than going into much depth.

The podcast follows the running order below.

A short guide to the legal position and history of the Windrush generation

A short history of refugees coming to Britain: from Huguenots to Ukrainians

Last traces of Nationality and Borders Act 2022 erased with abandonment of “differentiated status” for refugees

Data shows Ukrainians in the UK continue to face homelessness crisis

Is Rishi Sunak’s “Stop The Boats” plan really working?

Rwanda impact assessment looks hopelessly optimistic

United Nations Refugee Agency identifies problems in asylum screening processes

Briefing: the state of the UK asylum system   

What is the legal definition of a “refugee”?

Should refugees claim asylum in the first safe country they reach?

Preparing foreign language witness statements

So-called mandatory grounds for refusal will not always be mandatory

Briefing: the Seasonal Worker visa

Reaction economy: the Home Office’s use of social media

Will I need Electronic Travel Authorisation to enter the UK?

Briefing: what is the Common Travel Area and how does it work?

New country guidance on Democratic Republic of the Congo

Scottish inquiry finds immigration detention centre death was avoidable

Supreme Court finds golden visa scheme unlawful

Trafficking victims wrongly denied financial support in lockdown

Court declines to take legal guardianship of refugee children missing from hotels

Court of Appeal finds Rwanda plan unlawful as Rwanda is not a safe third country

This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin's suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, we run through a load of cases and end by talking about some business immigration issues. 

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

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The podcast follows the running order below.

How does the Illegal Migration Bill breach the Refugee Convention?

Illegal Migration Bill: helping force refugees into illegality and danger

Could ‘safe and legal routes’ stop the boats?

If the Illegal Migration Bill is unworkable, what can the government do instead?

Amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill attack basic legal rights and processes

Two ways to address the asylum backlog and improve access to justice

It is time for a new British Citizenship Act for the post-Brexit era

Home Office resume bank account closures

High Court rejects challenge by Afghan families to hotel move

High Court dismisses challenge to family reunion rules for refugee children

Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 ouster clause found effective

Court of Appeal re-affirms restrictive parameters of domestic violence provisions in immigration rules

Exceptional circumstances in a spouse or partner visa application under Appendix FM

How to apply for a Senior or Specialist Worker visa

Reporting hybrid working patterns: new sponsor obligations

Visit visa operations are “refreshingly well run”

For this month's roundup podcast, Sonia and I manage to rattle through a huge volume of updates in a mere 36 minutes. We cover a load of cases, some important asylum policy updates and then several developments in immigration law as well. We're sorry it is a little later than usual; the Easter holidays intervened. And I am sorry if you can hear scaffolders poles bouncing off the pavement outside the block of flats opposite my house...

If you are a lawyer and would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

The 30-minute podcast follows the running order below.

Permission granted on additional grounds in the Rwanda case in the Court of Appeal

Court of Appeal emphasises absence of corroboration is not fatal in asylum cases

Court of Appeal dismisses appeal against criminalising small boat arrivals

Legal challenges against GPS tagging for people on immigration bail

High Court considers how the loss of work may engage article 8

No recourse to public funds policy found unlawful (again)

“High hurdle” for hotel accommodation challenges?

Refusals of naturalisation on good character grounds can only be challenged by irrationality

Amended data protection exemption for migrants declared unlawful

UK spends one third of international aid budget on domestic asylum costs

Are the new asylum questionnaires fit for purpose?

Assisting with the new asylum questionnaires: OISC Level 1 caseworkers and volunteers

Home Office publishes guidance on streamlined asylum processing for children

Home Office’s approach to family reunion applications condemned by immigration inspector

Borders Inspector “frustrated” by lack of action from Home Office

New statement of changes to the Immigration Rules HC1160

Spring budget migration announcements

New ‘Appendix Adult Dependent Relative’ to the immigration rules 

All families matter: An inquiry into family migration 

Government Authorised Exchange: one visa, 40 options 

Colin Yeo and Sonia Lenegan discuss the Illegal Migration Bill. They talk through what is in it, what will it do, how is it intended to work, whether it is compatible with international law and what effects it might have in reality.

This month Sonia and I talk a bit about denaturalisation generally and the case of Shamima Begum specifically, we cover the new streamlined asylum process and a few other asylum-related blog posts and then we run through a few cases. We manage to keep things a bit shorter than normal, but watch out for our coverage of the Illegal Migration Bill, which will be available separately.

The 30-minute podcast follows the running order below.

Denaturalisation

Security tribunal finds Shamima Begum was trafficked but she loses anyway

Book review: Stephanie DeGooyer’s Before Borders: A legal and literary history of naturalization

Bad cases make bad law: the unintended consequences of denaturalising bad guys

Deception and denaturalisation: seek and you shall find

Asylum

Latest asylum stats show the Home Office failing on all fronts

New streamlined asylum process

Does 10 year ‘temporary refugee protection’ status breach of the Refugee Convention?

New policy: temporary permission to stay for victims of human trafficking

Trafficking victims should get leave during their asylum claim

Cases

Immigration officers don’t have to corroborate your story

No damages for unlawful no recourse to public funds policy

Differential treatment of Ukrainian and Afghan applications justified on national security grounds

Not all procedural errors need to be remitted says Upper Tribunal

More bad news from the Upper Tribunal for extended family members of EU citizens

This month Sonia and I talk through various government policies all about being horrible to migrants. It's a seemingly inexhaustible vein. Indeed, there aren't many (any?) government immigration policies NOT about being horrible to migrants. We then move on to discuss a few different nationality law issues, including the mind-boggling case of Roehrig, which appears to have effectively denaturalised tens of thousands of British citizens at a stroke. Finally, we turn to some important but rather technical updates for the lawyers amongst you.

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

Government policy

The misguided allure of deterrence policy

Adults at risk in immigration detention annual report scrapped after highlighting inadequacies (mention)

High Court orders Home Secretary to immediately increase asylum support rates (mention)

Is it time for the UK to change its stance on asylum seekers working? (mention)

Operation Warm Welcome cools: over 9,000 Afghans still in temporary accommodation (mention - and update with new news on this)

Legal aid for asylum seekers is broken

Will in-country visa delays have long-term consequences for economic migration? (mention)

A modest proposal for reforming the immigration system: shorten key immigration routes

Nationality

Revised guidance on section 4L British Nationality Act 1981: the Romein principle

The reasonably foreseeable consequences of depriving someone of British citizenship

High Court casts doubt on British citizenship of children of EU citizens

For lawyers...

“Upgrading” a visa application you have already made

Permission needs to be properly sought for video link evidence from abroad

Case disposed of in error after Secretary of State fails to comply with court directions

Is Chikwamba still relevant?

Durable partner rules dumbfound the Upper Tribunal

Identifying litigation friends for vulnerable migrants

Colin and Sonia take a look back at 2022 and ahead to 2023 as well as covering the immigration updates from December 2022. Looking back, they talk about small boat crossings, the Ukraine and Hong Kong schemes, the impact (or lack of) the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Rwanda judgment, the asylum backlog and the net migration figures. Looking to the future they cover Rishi Sunak's asylum plan, whether the Home Office can cope, the prospect of yet more legislation and the ideas for immigration restrictions on families, students and workers floated via The Times over the Christmas break.

Finally, they cover several litigation developments for lawyers from December 2022 and end by discussing to big cases for EU citizens with pre settled status. Phew. 

Looking back and ahead

Free Movement review of the year 2022

Rishi Sunak announces new new plan for asylum

Has Sunak’s bank account closure plan killed off the Windrush Lessons Learned Review?

High court rules Rwanda plan is lawful

When will there be another Rwanda removal flight?

Litigation

What is the duty of candour?

Social media and the duty of candour in age assessment proceedings

False imprisonment claimant punished for failing to negotiate

Tribunal quarterly statistics: 54 week waiting time for asylum appeals and 26,000 cases outstanding

Five million pound investment to increase the number of days tribunals operate

EU citizens

Win for Pre-Settled Status holders accessing benefits

High Court finds EU Settlement Scheme breaches the Withdrawal Agreement

This month, Colin and Sonia mainly talk about an avalanche of asylum related news, law and updates. It's not all asylum, though, there's also some blog posts to go over on Comprehensive Sickness Insurance, third party support in spouse applications, marriages in durable partner cases, the opening of the citizenship route for Chagossian descendants and a Solicitor Regulation Authority report on immigration lawyers. They end by discussing a couple of opinion pieces Colin published, on whether the Home Office should be abolished and whether strategic litigation does more harm than good. 

The blog posts covered include:

• What are ‘short term holding facilities’ like the Manston refugee camp?
• Briefing: What is Article 1D of the Refugee Convention?
• How does the asylum ‘white list’ work and what does the government plan to change?
• Asylum backlog hits 150,000 and net migration hits 500,000
• Understanding the Home Office’s problem with asylum decisions
• Appendix Settlement Protection: indefinite leave to remain for people granted refugee status or humanitarian protection
• Reducing distress when working with children in the asylum process
• Record high referrals for potential victims of modern slavery
• The refugee reception crisis in the UK mirrors the situation on the continent
• Failed asylum seeker’s false identity conviction quashed
• Home Office breaches the duty of candour in mobile phone seizures case
• Home Office guidance update: the NHS and comprehensive sickness insurance for EEA nationals
• Developments in third party financial support for spouse or partner visa applications
• Post-Brexit marriages in durable partner appeals
• New route to British citizenship for people of Chagossian descent
• Solicitors Regulation Authority publishes new guidance for immigration work: supervision, quality, and complaints
• Should the Home Office be abolished?
• Strategic litigation: more harm than good?

Welcome to the October 2022 episode of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month, Colin and Sonia talk politics, asylum, the statement of changes to the immigration rules and case law. The episode is a bit longer than usual as there was a lot going on!

Politics 

Braverman attacks modern slavery victims and student families  

Assessing Braverman’s legacy as Home Secretary 

How much influence does the media have over the hostile environment? 

Home Office hotels not fit to house unaccompanied child asylum seekers 

Indefinite leave to remain applications under Appendix FM: slow, expensive and inaccessible 

Asylum 

Why has the asylum success rate gone up so much in recent years? 

Are people crossing the Channel in small boats doing anything illegal? 

Putting small boat crossings in perspective 

Ukrainians in the UK face a homelessness crisis and the government needs to act now 

What’s happening in the Rwanda legal challenges? 

Statement of Changes 

New statement of changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 719 (Afghanistan, Ukraine, and victims of trafficking) 

Statement of Changes HC 719: Ukraine Extension Scheme 

Statement of Changes HC 719: Appendix EU and Appendix EU (Family Permit) 

Statement of Changes HC 719: Appendix Temporary Permission to Stay for Victims of Human Trafficking or Slavery 

Case law 

Introducing proportionality assessments into marriage of convenience cases 

Lack of route for victims of transnational marriage abandonment is unlawful, High Court finds 

Home Office to review policy on timing of applications after single father’s right to work limbo 

Applicants from Afghanistan may not need to enrol biometrics at the time of an application 

Court of Appeal quash trafficking victim’s 2009 conviction 

Welcome to the September 2022 episode of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month Colin is joined again by “immigration lawyer about town”, as she put it, Sonia Lenegan. She is in danger of becoming a co-presenter if she carries on like this...

Amongst other things, they discuss Albanian asylum claims, age assessment, military conscription and asylum, Windrush and an important update to the guidance on good character in British citizenship applications.

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

The 30-minute podcast follows the running order below.

Asylum and human rights

Grand Chamber finds France breached the European Convention of Human Rights

Why are so many Albanian asylum claims succeeding if the country is so “safe and prosperous”?

Government lawyers confirm that the Albanian “fast track” removal scheme will not apply to asylum seekers

New critique of Home Office country information on Albanian blood feuds

Major European judgment on age assessment process

Would Russian men fleeing conscription qualify as refugees?

Amendments to the Windrush Compensation

Other important stuff

Dependency under EU law: education as an essential living need

Guidance update: good character in nationality applications

Economic migration

How to apply for a Temporary Work – Creative Worker visa

Employers take note: all change for right to work checks from 1 October 2022

Colin and Sonia have a short chat about what's going on with immigration and asylum policy right now. With Truss and No 10 saying one thing and Braverman and the Home Office saying something very different, what should we make of it all? Are we going to have more students or less? Encourage skilled workers or reduce net migration? Cut unskilled migration or expand the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme? We thought we'd separate out a general discussion about politics and policy this month from the normal update, to try and keep the podcast short and snappy. We'll be back early next week with the normal update covering substantive legal developments from September 2022.

Welcome to episode 104 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month Colin is joined by "immigration lawyer about town", as she puts it, Sonia Lenegan. Taking pity on Colin after his solo effort last month, Sonia is the legal and policy director at Rainbow Migration, a consultant solicitor at Saltworks and a volunteer at Asylos and the Unity Project. She previously worked at Hackney Law Centre and as the legal director at the Immigration Law Practitioners Association.

Our discussion is a bit more free ranging than for past update episodes and we run to just over 40 minutes. We discuss the change of Home Secretary, the direction of government immigration policy, some changes in policy and new visas and go through the latest case law. Let us know in comments or by email what you think of the slightly different approach.

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

If you listen to podcasts on your mobile phone, you can subscribe for free on Anchor, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or by pointing your podcast player to the podcast feed for Free Movement. Using a mobile device and subscribing has the advantage that each new podcast can be automatically downloaded for listening to on the go.

To access previous Free Movement podcasts click here.

Welcome to episode 103 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month — the first in something like five years with no CJ McKinney — I’m starting with some material on asylum and trafficking then quickly going over a bit of immigration and nationality history and why it matters today, before moving onto various bits of Home Office news and then ending with a couple off items on deportation and foreign national offenders.

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are well over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

If you listen to podcasts on your mobile phone, you can subscribe for free on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or by pointing your podcast player to the podcast feed for Free Movement. Using a mobile device and subscribing has the advantage that each new podcast can be automatically downloaded for listening to on the go.

To access previous Free Movement podcasts click here.

The immigration system has been through a lot since I started covering it for Free Movement five years ago. In September 2017, the UK was still in the two-year countdown to leaving the European Union, and there were even doubts about whether it would happen at all. The EU Settlement Scheme was still a twinkle in the Home Office's eye, and instead of the exciting post-Brexit points-based immigration system we had a boring old... points-based immigration system.

But while the basic architecture of the visa system remains largely the same, lots of the details have changed. Gone are the Investor and Entrepreneur routes, while in have come a host of new or (more commonly) rebranded visas: Innovator, Graduate, Global Talent, High Potential and Seasonal Worker. The flagship Skilled Worker route is now much easier to recruit into than Tier 2 (General) ever was, and visa issuances to non-Europeans have soared. That's led to a recent narrative that immigration has actually risen since Brexit -- although as Peter William Walsh of the Migration Observatory points out, this theory is somewhat lacking in key epistemic features, such as being true.

I spoke to Peter, Colin and business immigration guru Nichola Carter for a valedictory podcast looking back at the big themes and trends of the past five years in UK immigration, including Brexit, Windrush and Rwanda.

Welcome to episode 102 of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. This month we start with elements of the Borders Act 2022 coming into force before moving on to Appendix Private Life and Appendix FM. We then review the latest case law on criminal deportation, touch briefly on Zambrano applications, and conclude with Rwanda.

If you would like to claim CPD points for reading the material and listening to this podcast, sign up here as a Free Movement member. There are now over 100 CPD hours of training materials available to members. You can find all the available courses here.

The downloadable 29-minute podcast follows the running order below. Timestamps indicate when a particular section begins.

Borders Act

When is the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 coming into force?

Detailed policy on differential treatment of refugees announced

Humanitarian protection is being downgraded from 28 June 2022

Human rights (7.50)

New guidance on private life and family relationships

Judge takes “points based system” a bit too literally

Appendix FM (10.44)

Free family visas: the entry clearance fee waiver policy

Whether income is “lawfully derived” to be assessed case by case, Upper Tribunal holds

Deportation (15.16)

Supreme Court allows foreign criminal deportation case

Foreign convictions in deportation appeals

Challenge to “deport first, appeal later” process rejected

Zambrano (23.08)

No change to settlement rules for Zambrano carers despite Akinsanya judgment

Rwanda (25.05)

Home Office plans second flight to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda

How to respond to Rwanda removal notices 

Comprehensive Sickness Insurance continues to hang over the heads of many EU citizens who, over the years, were told that they needed private health coverage for their residence in the UK to be lawful. The UK government’s insistence on this was always legally controversial, but it took until after Brexit for the EU Court of Justice to rule (in a case referred to it just before the UK’s departure) that CSI was not in fact required.

What are the implications of the ruling for EU citizens affected by the supposed CSI rule over the years? People were denied benefits, British citizenship and even protection against criminal deportation — not to mention spending money they didn’t need to. Even today, the government reserves the right to refuse naturalisation for past lack of CSI (even if it doesn’t in practice). Joining me on the podcast with thoughts on righting the wrong are Luke Piper of the3million and the CSI Justice campaign, and Professor Charlotte O’Brien of York Law School and the EU Rights and Brexit Hub.

In the States, they’re known as “Dreamers”. Children and young people who grow up perfectly integrated, only to find out that — through no fault of their own — they’re actually unauthorised migrants. Here in the UK, children who are British in every sense but legal can at least regularise on the basis of long residence: seven years for under-18s, or half their life for those aged 18-24 inclusive.

Securing immigration status under these “private life” rules is only the beginning: they still have to serve a probationary period of ten years before being able to apply for indefinite leave to remain and come out of the immigration system altogether. All this can profoundly affect identity and mental health: Anna Shekan and Roopa Tanna, my guests on the podcast this month, refer to a process of “de-integration”, as kids effectively become immigrants for the first time.

But things are improving for these British Dreamers. A concession announced last October allowed some 18-24s to apply for settlement on the half of life route after five years rather than ten. That was followed by new Immigration Rules on faster settlement for both under-18s and 18-24s, which come into force next month.
Combined with yesterday’s announcement on free British citizenship for poor children, all this adds up to — whisper it softly — a substantial liberalisation of the rules for undocumented kids. In this episode, Anna and Roopa explain how the changes came about and how many children and young people are likely to benefit.

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 hit the statute books yesterday. The Home Office says that the Act “puts into law that those who arrive illegally in the UK – who could have claimed asylum in another safe country – can be considered as ‘inadmissible’ to the UK asylum system”, and so removed to Rwanda under plans announced just before Easter.

In fact, as Jon Featonby tells me on the latest episode of the podcast, inadmissibility provisions authorising removal to Rwanda are already part of the Immigration Rules:

345C. When an application is treated as inadmissible, the Secretary of State will attempt to remove the applicant to the safe third country in which they were previously present or to which they have a connection, or to any other safe third country which may agree to their entry.

Putting these rules in the new Act does make it harder to challenge the Rwanda scheme in court. But Sonia Lenegan says lawyers are nothing daunted, with two crowdfunded legal challenges already in the works. I understand that a third is underway in Northern Ireland.

Given the legal and logistical challenges, will refugees really end up on planes to Rwanda? And if they do, will it deter others from seeking asylum in the UK?

The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner is changing. For one thing, there will soon be no office — or at least, not a physical one. The OISC is ditching its London headquarters and going fully remote, as well as regional. From 1 April, its staff will be assigned to a particular patch and told to get out into the community to find out what’s going on in the immigration advice world.

The Immigration Services Commissioner, John Tuckett, wants a more “proactive” regulator that strikes a better balance between its two core functions: regulating OISC advisers and stamping out the illegal activities of unregulated ones. Regulation will be less prescriptive, involving “partnership working whereby people can assess themselves, maybe carry out self-audit as well as us auditing them — rather than us doing it all as a Big Brother-type approach”. 

He’s also after more enforcement powers from the Home Office, the better to “disrupt the criminal activity that’s going on”. The reformed OISC will place less emphasis on expensive criminal prosecutions (which may be just as well, since it doesn’t do that many) and more on warnings, cautions and even restitution to victims of unregulated advice. 

John joins me on the podcast this month to explain more about his plans for “transforming the OISC“.

Closing the Investor visa route to new applicants with immediate effect was necessary, the Home Secretary said this week. If potential applicants had been given a decent period of notice, it might have attracted a last-minute flood of undesirables who “may not comply with the requirements of the Immigration Rules or who may pose national security risks”.

To which Sophie Barrett-Brown and Hazar El-Chamaa, my guests on the podcast this week, respond: why would you be granting visas to people who don’t qualify or threaten national security? The Home Office had plenty of existing powers to turn away applicants who can’t prove their money is clean or who seem that bit too close to the Kremlin. Shutting the whole thing down is disproportionate; doing so immediately, a blow to the UK’s reputation as a stable jurisdiction under the rule of law.

But we are, as so often, where we are — so what are the options now for bringing the world’s wealthy into the UK? The Home Office says that changes to the notorious Innovator route will help attract the right sort. The experts are… not convinced.

One of the Home Secretary’s more startling powers is to take people’s British citizenship away where they acquired it by fraud or it is “conducive to the public good”. In the latter case, losing citizenship often amounts to exile in the interests of national security: the tactic is to wait until the person is abroad before making the deprivation order. Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, the person need not be told about the order at all.

The Home Office tells us that this power is used “sparingly”. Between 2010 and 2018, “only around 19 people a year were deprived of their citizenship on ‘conducive to the public good’ grounds”. Whether that is rare or routine depends on your point of view, but the average conceals an upward trend in recent years (insofar as figures are available). This week alone, Free Movement covered two separate appeals against citizenship deprivation — one of which was argued by our latest podcast guest, Alasdair MacKenzie of Doughty Street Chambers.

I spoke to Alasdair about the law on citizenship deprivation, his experience fighting cases in the SIAC national security court — “like wrestling with a shadow” — and the role of judges in policing one of the state’s most draconian powers.