Recently in Immigration Law Category

The Government has announced that it will freeze the cap on migrant workers' visas at £20,700 until April 2014 in a move which is set to please businesses which have grown tired of the constant tweaking of immigration laws under the coalition government.

However, the Financial Times writes that despite this welcome break, businesses are still facing the prospect of wading through a raft of new immigration regulations which have been brought in by the Government this month.

The regulations are the result of a pledge by the Conservatives to reduce net migration towards the level of 'tens of thousands' by the end of this parliamentary session.

The Home Office is furious after judges at a Special Immigration Appeal Commission Tribunal decided to free the radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada from Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire, where he was being detained.

Mr Qatada was described by security services as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, and videos of his hate-filled sermons were found in the possession of those who committed the 9/11 atrocities.

He had been incarcerated in a maximum-security prison for six and a half years without trial, the longest period in modern times.

The European Court of Justice has ruled that asylum seekers cannot be removed from one EU country to another if they risk being treated inhumanely in the destination country.

The ruling was made against the Home Office, who had argued that they should be allowed to assume that all EU countries protect individuals' rights.

Under a current EU law, known as the 'Dublin regulation', asylum seekers must apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter. If they leave that country and travel elsewhere, the rule says that they can be forced to return.

A High Court judge has awarded an illegal immigrant over £17,000 in damages after he successfully claimed that he had been unlawfully imprisoned by the Home Office.

Judge Stephen Stewart QC ruled that Joseph Mjemer had been unlawfully held by the Home Office under "administrative custody" while they attempted to discover his nationality in order to deport him.

Mr Mjemer entered the UK illegally by boat in 2003 and claimed asylum. During the next few years, Mr Mjemer was convicted for more than 20 offences including dangerous driving, property damage and trying to obtain property by deception.

In a speech on immigration he will give later today, Prime Minister David Cameron will call for the criminalisation of forced marriages.

Those who force others to marry against their will be committing a criminal offence, as will those who breach court orders that are imposed to prevent forced marriages taking place.

Currently, Forced Marriage Protection Orders, which were introduced to England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2008, can be applied for by a potential victim, friend or police officer in order to protect a person who could be at risk of being forced into marriage.

With universities now having strict rules to adhere to in order to maintain their status as foreign-student sponsors, the number of reports over suspicious student visas has been increasing.

Figures released to the Manifesto Club campaign group under the Freedom of Information Act showed that more than 1,500 foreign students are being reported every month to the UK Border Agency.

The Manifesto Club, a group that campaigns against regulation and supports free movement across borders, said that the strict visa controls mean that academic bodies feel forced to spy on their students, ultimately ruining relationships between students and teachers.

Three couples are fighting a new law, which came into force in the UK last year in November, which requires immigrants to be able to speak English if they wish to join their spouses in this country.

The couples are requesting a judicial review, claiming that the new law breaches the human right to a family life and that it is discriminatory.

Rashida Chapti, 54, is a British citizen and she has been married to Vali Chapti, 57, for 37 years and has six children. For the past 15 years, Mrs Chapti has travelled between England and India in order to spend time with her husband, but now she wishes Mr Chapti to live with her in Leicester.

A Moldovan woman has received a "groundbreaking" settlement from the Home Office the day before her case was due to be heard in the High Court.

The Moldovan woman was a repeated victim of sex trafficking, having been kidnapped at the age of 14 and continually trafficked and re-trafficked until she was 21 years of age.

A landmark ruling has granted an African illegal immigrant the right to stay in the UK as her children were born in the country.

The woman, from Tanzania, has been in the UK since 1995 and made three claims for asylum that were rejected. Two claims were using false identities.

Although the court deemed the woman's Uk immigration record as "appalling", they ruled in her favour after learning she had mothered two British-born children.

UK football clubs bought and sold players before last night's 11pm transfer deadline, but did they make sure their purchases all had valid UK work visas?

The January transfer season ended with around £214 million being spent, including the sale of Spanish striker Fernando Torres to Chelsea for a British club record of £50 million.

But deals have fallen through in the past as players were caught without a UK visa.

Four out of five people in the UK are behind cuts in the level of immigration into the country, a government survey has revealed.

The Communities Department Citizenship Survey, undertaken by the Communities Department, found over 50 per cent of the public asked wanted to see less immigrants coming from overseas to live in Britain.

70 per cent of people from England and Wales want to see cuts in UK immigration. Only 3 per cent surveyed thought there should be an increase in immigration numbers.

As England attempts to win the bid to host the 2018 World Cup, Fifa has successfully won its bid to be exempt from the UK's stringent money-laundering legislation as part of the bid deal.

Football's international governing body has asked to be guaranteed exclusion from a range of UK laws.

One such law relates to Bank and Foreign Exchange Operations. Fifa has demanded that the UK government allow "the unrestricted import and export of all foreign currencies to and from the UK, as well as the unrestricted exchange and conversion of these currencies into US dollars, euros or Swiss francs".

The government announced new immigration rules yesterday to limit the flow of migrants into the UK from outside Europe.

The most important of the rule changes, which will take affect from April 2011, include:

In June, shortly after taking office, Conservative minister Theresa May sent a tightly-scripted question to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a body sponsored by the UK Border Agency of the Home Office. It read as follows:

'At what level should limits on Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the points-based system be set for their first full year of operation in 2011/12, in order to contribute to achieving the government's aim of reducing net migration to an annual level of tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament, and taking into account social and public service impacts as well as economic impacts?'

Former Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas appeared at the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) in London yesterday to commence judicial review action against a decision to bar him from public office.

Earlier this month, a specially convened election court found that Woolas contravened section 106 of the Representation of the People Act during the 2010 Oldham East and Saddleworth general election contest by unreasonably making untrue statements about his Lib Dem opponent Elwyn Watkins.