Legal assistance to corporate and private clients

Our immigration team has achieved a successful decision in the asylum appeal of a Nepalese national and her spouse. According to the Immigration & Asylum Upper Tribunal, they should both be allowed to remain in the UK under the protection of Refugee law.

The appellant fell in love and married in the UK against the wishes of her family in Nepal, causing her to fear severe consequences upon return, including honour violence and persecution on the basis that she is a woman who married outside her caste and nationality.

Our immigration team achieved great success in representing a client in her appeal against the Home Office’s decision to refuse issuance of the Residence Card as an extended family member of an EEA national.
Our client, a Ukrainian national entered the UK as a Family Permit holder and was residing in the UK as an extended family member of an EEA national (her father-in-law was Portuguese). Our client lived with her husband and son, whose residence in the UK was also dependent on the same EEA national.

Excellent news; adult dependent relative appeal allowed by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber)!

Our client, an Indian national, came to the UK with her husband lawfully to visit their son and grandchildren, who are British nationals. Sadly, her husband passed away suddenly while they were in the UK. Our client had a history of dementia with Parkinson’s disease along with anxiety and depression, which made her return to India unachievable.

Our client, a non-EEA national, initially obtained a residence card as the spouse of an EEA national. Our client subsequently divorced from his EEA national spouse and obtained a residence card under the Retained Rights route. The client then applied for permanent residence, which was refused and a subsequent appeal was dismissed by First-Tier Tribunal as the Judge wrongly thought the client needed to be a qualified person, not his EEA national spouse during the time their marriage lasted. Permission to appeal on this basis was granted. 

The Immigration Rules regarding long residence provide that Applicants who have resided in the UK continuously and lawfully for 10 years are entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain.
This begs the question: what if I have a gap in my lawful residence?
The Immigration Rules state as follows: 276B. The requirements to be met by an applicant for indefinite leave to remain on the ground of long residence in the United Kingdom are that:

In the recent case of Topadar v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1525 the Court of Appeal examined two questions:

At what point is an immigration application decided by the Home Office?
Is it procedurally unfair for the Home Office to refuse an application due to the applicant’s sponsor (i.e. their employer) failing to provide additional information (without the applicant ever being made aware of the request)? 

The Court of Appeal decided:

Sterling Law successfully appealed refusal on Suitability grounds.
The client came to the UK on a visit visa, overstayed and became pregnant. The baby tragically died. She afterwards entered a relationship with a settled person and applied for leave on that basis. The application was refused and we successfully appealed to the First-Tier Tribunal.