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Immigration law in the time of Coronavirus (1)

Well, it’s fair to say that things have changed.

The measures taken by governments across the world to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have distorted almost every aspect of the societies in which we live. Here, in the UK, most of us have been confined to our homes for the last six weeks with no real sense of when we will all be able to return to the rhythm of our daily lives. It appears clear that for the foreseeable future, our lives will move to the beat of the ‘new normal’, whatever that, in time, comes to mean.

But while so many parts of our lives have been placed on pause, others have continued to move forward at life’s usual pace. Our hair has continued to grow (and grow, given our inability to visit the hairdresser in times of lockdown), birthdays and anniversaries have been celebrated (often remotely and at a safe social distance) in lockdown and Spring has bloomed and is now very much all around us.

So, what of visa expiry dates, asylum interviews, reporting events and appeal hearings, the vital components that make up the UK immigration system?

In these blog posts, we aim to provide you with up to date guidance on how the Home Office and the Immigration Tribunals are changing its practices to cope with coronavirus. We’ll give these to you in bite-size chunks starting, in this post, with visa extensions, and then, in later posts, with how (if at all) applications at UK visa application centres can be made, changes to the way that asylum claims are being progressed, how Tribunals are adapting to deal with appeals and the current Home Office approach to enforcement and other aspects of immigration control, including the right to work and recourse to public funds. The government response to this crisis is evolving every day and we will endeavour to use these posts to identify those changes that have an impact on the operation in the UK immigration system to keep you as well informed as possible.

In this post, we cover the Home Office’s stated approach to visa extensions.

The headline is that the Home Office is granting visa extensions on request to individuals with leave expiring before 31st May 2020 and who cannot leave the UK because of travel restrictions or self-isolation related to coronavirus. Home Office policy guidance can be found here.

To obtain an extension, individuals affected must fill in the online form at the following link:

The Home Office advises that the result, following consideration of the information provided on the form, will be that, in appropriate cases, the affected individual’s leave will be extended under existing conditions until 31st May 2020 and that the individual will not be regarded as an overstayer or suffer any detriment in any future applications.

It is important to emphasise that this is a policy that is being operated by the Home Office. There has been no change in the law. It is therefore subject to change and it is important that you seek legal advice before your visa is due to expire to make sure that no mistakes are made in light of the facts of your particular case.

The Home Office guidance also appears to allow people whose visas are due to expire by 31st May 2020 and who want to switch to a different visa category and would normally have to make their next application from outside the UK to make that application in-country instead. Again, this is policy guidance and it is essential that you seek legal advice about your particular circumstances as soon as possible before your visa is due to expire.

The Home Office announced on 31st March 2020 that doctors, nurses and paramedics (and their family members) who are in the UK with visas due to expire by 1st October 2020 are to get an automatic one-year extensions to their visa. The Home Office has since confirmed that this is not limited to individuals on Tier 2 visas. If you think this policy might apply to you, you should contact your hospital HR department to find out if you are eligible.

Restrictions on the amount of hours student nurses and doctors can work in the NHS have also been lifted.

As all of the above is based on Home Office policy guidance and press releases and is not based on any change in the law, we must emphasise that individuals who might be able to benefit should be cautious and should seek legal advice before their visas expire to ensure that they make well-informed decisions.

The Home Office has also set up a coronavirus helpline:

“Email: CIH@homeoffice.gov.uk Your email must be in English.
We aim to reply to your email within 5 working days.
You can also call the Coronavirus Immigration Help Centre. If you’ve emailed the help centre already, please do not contact them by phone.
Telephone: 0800 678 1767 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)”

The Home Office emphasises that “if your query doesn’t relate to immigration provisions associated with coronavirus (COVID-19) please contact the general immigration helpline on 0300 123 2241″.

If you need advice on how the above might affect your personal circumstances, give our expert team of immigration lawyers a call on 020 3930 3831. We are here to help you.

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