UTIAC (1) The statutory duty to consider the matters set out in s 117B of the 2002 Act is satisfied if the Tribunal’s decision shows that it has had regard to such parts of it as are relevant.
(2) An appellant can obtain no positive right to a grant of leave to remain from either s117B (2) or (3), whatever the degree of his fluency in English, or the strength of his financial resources.
(3) Parliament has now drawn a sharp distinction between any period of time during which a person has been in the UK ‘unlawfully’, and any period of time during which that person’s immigration status in the UK was merely ‘precarious’.
(4) Those who at any given date held a precarious immigration status must have held at that date an otherwise lawful grant of leave to enter or to remain. A person’s immigration status is ‘precarious’ if their continued presence in the UK will be dependent upon their obtaining a further grant of leave.
(5) In some circumstances it may also be that even a person with indefinite leave to remain, or a person who has obtained citizenship, enjoys a status that is ‘precarious’ either because that status is revocable by the Secretary of State as a result of their deception, or because of their criminal conduct. In such circumstances the person will be well aware that he has imperilled his status and cannot viably claim thereafter that his status is other than precarious.
(6) When the question posed by s117B(6) is the same question posed in relation to children by paragraph 276ADE(1)(iv) it must be posed and answered in the proper context of whether it was reasonable to expect the child to follow its parents to their country of origin; EV (Philippines). It is not however a question that needs to be posed and answered in relation to each child more than once.
Ockleton VP, Holmes DUTJ
[2015] UKUT 260 (IAC)
Bailii
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 55, Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 117B
England and Wales
Immigration
Updated: 30 December 2021; Ref: scu.547335
