The Home Office has decided that, from April 2022, most people who have a reporting condition attached to their immigration bail are to report by telephone instead of in-person.

The Home Office is conducting many substantive (big) asylum interviews via video call instead of in-person. The asylum substantive interview is the big interview in the asylum process when the Home Office interviewer will ask you in detail about your reasons for claiming asylum. For suggestions on how to prepare, have a read of our blogpost.

The Migration Justice Project at the Law Centre NI has drafted a guide to help people seeking asylum understand how and whether they can apply for permission to work while their claim is pending.

The Ukraine Advice Project UK has been set up by a group of volunteer lawyers and legal professionals in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The project offers a free service which connects Ukrainian citizens and individuals who are fleeing Ukraine with qualified and regulated lawyers who can provide basic legal advice on UK immigration. The group can also provide advice on visa extensions and claiming asylum from within the UK.

In January 2021, the UK government introduced new rules through which they can decide that an asylum claim is “inadmissible”, meaning it won’t be considered in the UK.

A year on, we have some more information about how these rules are working (or not working) in practice.

Following a legal challenge by Islington Law Centre and the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU), and campaigning by the organisation We Belong, the Home Office have announced a concession (a slight change in policy) for some young people who have been granted periods of limited leave and will eventually want to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain.

From November 2021, a new department will be responsible for some decisions about whether someone is a victim of trafficking.

Since 2019, these decisions have all been made by a “Single Competent Authority”. Now, some people’s cases will be passed by the Single Competent Authority to the “Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority”.

If you are an EEA/Swiss national and you were in the UK before 11pm on 31 December 2020, in most circumstances the deadline to apply to the Settled Status scheme was 30 June 2021.

Even though this main deadline has passed, it’s still possible to apply to the EU Settled Status scheme if you have what the Home Office consider to be “reasonable grounds” for delay.

We are delighted to say that, thanks to IRMO, we now have three animation videos about the UK asylum process in Spanish and six sections of the Right to Remain Toolkit translated!

Many people are trying to understand the situation for Afghans in the UK who do not have immigration status, and for people still in Afghanistan with possible rights to come to the UK.

There are many things that are still unclear and the situation is likely to change quite a lot.

In the meantime, here are a couple of useful resources for people wanting more information.