Table of Contents

1. Administration and Law
I. Immigration Administration
II. Models of Administrative Law
III. Concepts and Ideas to Investigate Administration and Law
IV. The Plan of the Book
2. The Immigration Department
I. Constituting Administration
II. The Development of the Immigration Department
III. Getting under the Surface
IV. Conclusion
3. Administrative Policy-making: The Hostile Environment Policy and Windrush
I. Policy-making
II. The Hostile Environment
III. Windrush
IV. Policy-making Failures
V. After and Beyond Windrush
VI. Conclusion
4. Administrative Rules and Guidance
I. Immigration Rules
II. Choice of Rule-type
III. Guidance and Policies
IV. Human Rights and Rules
V. Complex Rules and Simplification
VI. Evaluating Rules
VII. Conclusion
5. Caseworking
I. Caseworking in General
II. Processing Targets and Decision Quality
III. Organising Caseworking
IV. Styles of Immigration Rule-Application and Administrative Culture
V. Internal Mechanisms to Enhance Decision Quality
VI. Conclusion
6. Redress and Legal Challenges
I. The Development of Immigration Administrative Law Remedies
II. Administrative Review of Administrative Decisions
III. Tribunal Appeals
IV. Individual Judicial Reviews
V. Responsible Administration: A Proactive Approach to Detecting Errors and Monitoring Administrative Action
VI. Conclusion
7. Immigration Enforcement
I. Immigration Enforcement and its Challenges
II. Enforcement Options
III. Enforcement Operations
IV. Assessing Matters So Far
V. Organising Enforcement Operations
VI. Improving Enforcement Operations
VII. Competent, Effective and Diverse Administration
VIII. Conclusion
8. Judicial Review: Norms and Pragmatism
I. Judicial Review and Administration
II. Systemic Procedural Unfairness
III. Principles of Legality 3
IV. Conclusion
9. Bureaucratic Oppression
I. Bureaucratic Oppression and Immigration Administration
II. Tribunals and Courts
III. Complaint-handling Systems
IV. Independent Inspection and Monitoring
V. Immigration Detention
VI. The Hostile Environment
VII. Ameliorating Bureaucratic Oppression
VIII. Conclusion
10. Conclusion
I. Administrative Capacity and Performance
II. Institutional Design and Administrative Legitimacy
III. Reforming Immigration Administration
IV. Legal Control and Bureaucratic Oppression
V. Studying Administration and Administrative Law

Promotional Information

This book provides a detailed analysis of how the immigration department performs its core functions of making policy and law, taking mass casework decisions, and enforcing immigration law. It considers the development of the hostile environment policy and the treatment of the Windrush generation

About the Author

Robert Thomas is Professor of Public Law at the University of Manchester, UK.

Reviews

Essential reading for anyone interested in migration, immigration policy, and administrative law. Thomas’ deep institutional knowledge and keen eye for bureaucratic structure paints a grizzly picture of the UK immigration department. At the same time, Thomas remains engaged and offers thoughtful recommendations on how the department might be reconstituted and rid itself of bureaucratic oppression.
*adminlawblog*

Fresh, challenging and department-centred, this book is an important contribution to contemporary administrative law scholarship. Interweaving theory and principle with careful analysis of legal and administrative practice, Robert Thomas takes us on an eye-opening journey through the heavily contested field of immigration administration. Bravo!
*Richard Rawlings, Professor of Public Law, University College London, UK*

An important and timely work which approaches administrative law and the study of
administration in a wider context.
*Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law*

In a deeper top-down study of the immigration process, Robert Thomas adopts a holistic “law and administration” and “governmental” approach to the immigration process, ranging from policy-making to implementation and adjudication. It stands as a model for researchers in this field.
*‘Administrative justice in transit: time for new vistas’ in C Harlow (ed.), 'A Research Agenda for Administrative Law' (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2023), p.141*

Administrative Law in Action is an extensive and comprehensive study of the administrative systems and institutions involved in immigration control in the United Kingdom (UK) [...] It takes a thoroughly contextual approach, branching out from an exclusive focus on the principles and practice of judicial review to engage in a much wider study of institutions, policymaking, and practice: an extended and exclusive focus on doctrinal analysis this is not. Robert Thomas’s extensive experience and knowledge of the intersection of immigration and administrative law ‘in action’ is evident throughout, making this a rich and rewarding book.
*International Journal of Refugee Law, Volume 35, Issue 2, 2023*

Thomas’s good governance critique ultimately presses a question on ministers (and for broader debate), which dovetails with the wider border criminology literature: what is an immigration system, especially as a system of enforcement, actually for? What should it be for?
*The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, April 2024*

For anyone with an interest in immigration law, policy or administration, this book is an essential read. The quality of scholarship is formidable. The book is likely, one would predict, to have a long shelf life. It certainly deserves to become a landmark in the field.
*Socio & Legal Studies 2023, Vol. 32 (2)*