Welcome to the weekly Free Motion e-newsletter!
Final week, the brand new Immigration and Asylum Invoice started its passage by means of parliament and is ready to be debated on 13 July. It introduces the Unbiased Immigration Appeals Authority which can hear most asylum and human rights appeals, changing the First-tier Tribunal, and makes modifications to the appliance of Article 8 of the European Conference on Human Rights, together with narrowing the definition of household life. There are additionally measures to recuperate the prices spent on asylum help, which means refugees who’ve ample means could also be required to make month-to-month contributions in direction of the price of their help, which is anticipated to quantity to round £10,000. The invoice additionally makes modifications to the trendy slavery framework. Our full protection is right here.
Many of those new measures appear punitive and impractical and have drawn important criticism. A joint assertion from Deal with Labour Exploitation, Anti-Slavery Worldwide and others warned that the invoice’s strategy to fashionable slavery will fail survivors and profit traffickers, and the Refugee Council mentioned the proposed cost-recovery measure ‘would solely hurt those that arrive on our shores with the least’. The Legislation Society urged the federal government to scrap the proposed new appeals physique, which can see skilled immigration judges changed by adjudicators with out authorized {qualifications}.
Individually, the federal government laid rules extending proper to work checks and civil penalties to gig economic system and company work, which can take impact in October 2026. That is framed as a clampdown on unlawful working as a driver of unlawful migration and exploitation, however in observe means much more guidelines for employers and landlords to grapple with.
Over on Free Motion, Daniel Rourke wrote a briefing on gathering proof for functions for settlement for victims of home abuse. That is important studying for practitioners dealing with these notoriously troublesome functions, which rely largely on the standard of the proof bundle.
We additionally printed a information to making use of for a kid pupil visa. Oska Paul wrote a bit making the case for a devoted UK fishing visa, arguing that the present framework leaves employees within the sector uncovered to exploitation.
Our information on good character and legal convictions in British citizenship functions was up to date by Nath Gbikpi, and Pip Hague up to date her submit on apply for a world enterprise mobility: service provider visa.
For every thing else on Free Motion and elsewhere, learn on.
Jasmine
What we’re studying
Cultural, linguistic and procedural boundaries to entry to justice in immigration and asylum tribunals, Public Legislation Challenge, 30 June 2026
Scholar Migration to the UK, Migration Observatory, 30 June 2026
UK universities to sponsor refugees beneath new asylum “protected routes” overhaul, the PIE Community, 30 June 2026
Immigration Invoice: security ought to by no means be on the market, The Scottish Refugee Council, 30 June 2026
UK: Imminent Immigration Invoice is ‘politics as efficiency not drawback fixing’, Amnesty Worldwide UK, 30 June 2026
Immigration and asylum invoice: why one more try to overhaul the system gained’t work, The Dialog, 2 July 2026
Rising go away to stay timeframe for UK care employees ‘merciless’, say campaigners, The Guardian, 29 June 2026
