Free Hybrid Seminar – Afghan Relocation Schemes: Progress Review

The ARAP (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) and ACRS (Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme) programmes were introduced to protect and relocate personnel who undertook significant personal risk in supporting the British mission in Afghanistan.

Three and a half years after the Taliban takeover, it is time to review the progress made, ongoing challenges, and recent legal developments, drawing on the JUSTICE August 2023 Report and the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders & Immigration’s (ICIBI) February 2024 Report.

This hybrid seminar covered the following topics:

• ARAP and ACRS Policy Implementation: Reviewing the progress of the schemes and identifying areas of concern highlighted in recent reports.
• Post-Approval Relocation and UK Transition: Addressing delays in relocating via third countries, bridging accommodation in military bases, internal relocation, and access to services.
• Family Member Applications: Overcoming Hurdles: Discussing AFM (Additional Family Members) and IFM (Immediate Family Member) processes, and alternative application routes.
• Caselaw Review: Decision-Making Procedures: Exploring issues of apparent bias, the right to reasons, and transparency.
• Caselaw Review: Applying the Criteria and Rationality: Examining national security cases and the application of criteria to various job types.

Speakers
Sonali Naik KC, Garden Court Chambers (Co-Chair)
Sonali Naik KC specialises in public law cases and in all aspects of immigration, asylum and nationality law and practice. She regularly advises on and acts in public law policy challenges and test cases in this field. She is representing UNHCR in a challenge to the refugee child family reunion policy in the Court of Appeal, listed for May 2025, and she acted in the successful ‘Rwanda’ litigation (AAA and others) in the Supreme Court. Sonali also acted in the leading case on internal relocation in the asylum context: AS (Afghanistan) v SSHD [2019] WLR 5345. In 2023, Sonali was listed in The Lawyer magazine’s Hot 100 list, which recognises excellence in the legal profession. She was also a recipient of a Highly Commended Award at The Lawyer Awards 2022 for a pro bono initiative to assist Afghan judges in securing UK visas.

Tim Owen KC, Matrix Chambers (Co-Chair)
Tim’s practice spans the fields of fraud/regulatory law, criminal law, public kaw, human rights, sanctions, media and information law, extradition/MLA, sports law, asset recovery, police law and civil fraud. In the past few years, he has acted for numerous clients seeking to challenge decisions to refuse entry clearance under the ARAP scheme to Afghan citizens who had worked for or alongside UK forces prior to the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Tim is a Deputy High Court Judge (Administrative Court) and an Acting Judge of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands. He is a founding member of Matrix Chambers and co-hosts ‘Double Jeopardy: The Law and Politics Podcast’.

Emma Daykin, Barrister, One Pump Court Chambers
Emma is a very experienced practitioner in all aspects of immigration, public law, civil penalties and cash forfeiture. She has always practised in immigration, asylum and human rights. Over the last year, Emma has been instructed in a number of judicial review cases involving Afghan interpreters, judges and special forces military personnel and their families refused under the ARAP scheme and related policies. She is experienced in closed material proceedings in national security cases. Emma acts as an advocate and advises at all levels.  She has particular experience in Afghan cases, complex trafficking claims, deprivation of nationality, asylum claims based on sexual identity, the Turkish Ankara Agreement and appeals against deportation.

Professor Sara de Jong, Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of York
Sara de Jong is a Professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of York. She is also the co-founder and chair of the board of trustees of the Sulha Alliance CIO, which advocates for Afghan locally employed civilians, who worked for the British Army. Her long-standing research on the resettlement and right claims of Afghan interpreters, who were employed by western armies has been published widely in media and academic outlets. She has worked closely with legal professionals on Afghan cases and has given evidence on the failures of the Afghan resettlement schemes to UK and Dutch MPs. Together with photographer Andy Barnham, she developed the award-winning exhibition ‘Armed with Words: Interpreting the War in Afghanistan 2001-2021’, which has been shown at multiple venues across the UK. Through portrait photography and quotes it tells the stories of Afghan interpreters, who were resettled to the UK, alongside the experiences of veteran advocates from the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and Sweden.

Daniel Carey, Partner, Deighton Pierce Glynn
Daniel Carey is a partner at Deighton Pierce Glynn. He is ranked as a leading solicitor for administrative and public law and civil liberties and human rights in the Chambers directory. He has been recognised as “one of the most innovative human rights lawyers out there”. Daniel has substantial experience in public law challenges to local and national government. Together with colleagues, he has brought multiple successful judicial reviews regarding the operation of the Afghanistan Relocations and Assistance Policy and associated UK government decision-making, as well as cases regarding overseas military activities; surveillance programmes; the police retention of school children’s data under the Prevent counter-extremism programme; blanket phone seizure policies affecting migrants; national consultations on changes to legal aid funding, healthcare access for migrants; and numerous instances of unlawful immigration detention, failures to provide asylum support housing; failures to recognise victims of human trafficking and delays in asylum decision making for unaccompanied children, victims of human trafficking and others.

Erin Alcock, Associate, Leigh Day Solicitors
Erin is an associate in the human rights and public law team. She has over seven years’ experience supporting NGOs, campaigners and individuals with public interest and high profile cases, particularly cases with an element of public international law, information rights, or the rights of refugees and migrants. Erin acted for Afghan interpreters whose UK entry visas were refused on national security grounds, successfully overturning those decisions. She also represented the claimant in the judicial review MKA v SSD, where she successfully challenged the refusal of their application for relocation under the ARAP scheme. Moreover, Erin assisted Afghan patrol interpreters who worked for the British army with their applications for resettlement in the UK under the various relocation schemes. She was part of the JUSTICE Working Group responsible for the report, ‘Reforming the Afghanistan Resettlement Schemes: the way forward for ARAP and ACRS’, published in August 2023.