Tempting as it is to not look back at this year, it’s important to remember the small successes, and how we’ve survived this year to fight for a better one.

The latest video from our series on understanding the UK asylum and immigration system – this one is on understanding case law.

Find out what it is, where to find it, and how to use it in your legal case.

An article by May Bulman in the Independent this week revealed that the number of “fresh claims” has more halved, attributed to a change in procedure for lodging the claims with the Home Office.

If you have evidence you wish to submit to the Home Office to consider as a fresh claim after you are “appeal rights exhausted”, in most cases you need to make an appointment to submit the evidence in person at the Further Submissions Unit in Liverpool.

We have revamped the Right to Remain Toolkit, creating a new page that looks just at “Article 8” family/private life cases – a type of human rights application for the right to remain in the UK.

In this context, we are talking about someone seeking the right to stay in the UK because they need medical treatment that is not available to them in their country of origin.

Cases involving human rights/medical grounds are particularly complicated, and often very distressing. 

At one of the training sessions we ran this week with volunteers who are keen to learn more and do more for people seeking the right to remain in the UK – we looked at evidence.  What ‘evidence’ means, in the context of asylum, immigration and human rights cases.  How someone can get this evidence, and how others can help them.  We discussed how important documentary evidence is, when so many legal cases are refused on the basis of credibility – the Home Office or the courts don’t believe you are telling the truth.

Not all immigration decisions have the right of appeal in the UK.

There is currently only the right of appeal within the UK if the Home Office refuse an application based on: an “international protection” claim (asylum or Humanitarian Protection applications); a decision to revoke refugee status or humanitarian protection; a decision that you have no right to remain under European law; or a human rights claim.

And not all applications based on human rights or protection grounds have a right of appeal in the UK.

Earlier today MPs and Peers held a parliamentary meeting on immigration detention, hearing from experts about the hazardous effects of detention, and why urgent and… Read more »

Last Thursday human rights campaigners, union members, migrant rights groups, political representatives and other members of the public met to campaign against immigration detention. Setting… Read more »