Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Appeal Number: UI-2025-000633
First-tier Tribunal No: (PA/53960/2023)

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House
Decision & Reasons Issued
On 8 April 2025
7th May 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE RIMINGTON
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE J F W PHILLIPS

Between

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

H.P.
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Ms J Norman, Counsel instructed by Barnes Harrild & Dyer
For the Respondent: Mr E Terrell, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. This is an appeal against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Judge Wilsher) in which the Judge dismissed the appeal of the Appellant a citizen of Vietnam, against the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse his application for asylum and humanitarian protection.
2. The grounds of appeal to the Upper Tribunal assert that the First-tier Tribunal Judge erred in law by giving insufficient or inadequate reasons, making findings that were not reasonably open to him and erring in his assessment of the risk of re-trafficking. Permission to appeal was granted by First-tier Tribunal Judge Seelhoff on 4 February 2025 on the basis that the grounds were arguable.
Submissions
3. For the Appellant Ms Norman referred to the grounds of appeal noting that the Judge had accepted significant parts of the Appellant’s account but suggesting that the Judge had not given sufficient reasons for adverse findings. The Appellant was accepted as a vulnerable witness and his core account was consistent. Having accepted that the Appellant was treated poorly by Mr Tan (the person entrusted by his father to look after him as a minor in Vietnam) there was no adequate reason given for the finding that he was not monitored. The Appellant was being physically assaulted and threatened. The Judge states that sale of the family home must have meant that he wanted to come to the United Kingdom. This ignores the fact that it was accepted that he intended to join his father in Taiwan. There was no adequate reasoning for the finding that the Appellant came to the United Kingdom for economic betterment. The suggestion that the people smugglers would behave with business acumen ignores the fact that people smugglers are likely to be unscrupulous. In making findings the Judge did not take adequate account of the Appellant’s age. It was wrong of the judge to refer to the Appellant’s long work history when in fact this was childhood exploitation. So far as risk of re-trafficking is concerned the Appellant meets most of the criteria with previous exploitation in Vietnam and working in nail bars in the United Kingdom and having no family support network in Vietnam.
4. For the Respondent Mr Terrell said that although the Appellant’s account was broadly accepted it does not follow that the Judge was bound to accept everything he said. There were still credibility issues and the Judge was entitled to find that some aspects were not true or exaggerated. At paragraph 6 the Judge gives adequate reasons. It is perfectly clear why Judge does not believe the Appellant. There is nothing perverse in the Judge’s findings and no basis on which to interfere. In respect of the second ground the Judge takes account of the Appellant’s age at paragraph 4. He does not need to repeat this in every paragraph. The third ground cannot succeed. There is no suggestion that the Appellant would need to go back to Mr Tan or in view of the other findings that he would be re-trafficked.
5. Ms Norman responded to say that it was wrong to conclude that the Appellant spoke to his father on more than one occasion without being overheard. It was not suggested that the Judge was obliged to accept everything. The Judge’s concludes that it was “reasonable to infer” but this conflicts with paragraph 7 where he accepts that Appellant did not know much about the arrangements because his father made them. The Appellant was not certain that the house sold for £20,000 and that £10,000 was raised by neighbours because his father made the arrangements. The inference of many conversations is unreasoned. There would not need to be more than one occasion. This 15 year old was not micromanaging the sale of family home. When the Judge says it must have involved many conversations this is not adequately reasoned.
Discussion
6. The Appellant is a 22-year-old citizen of Vietnam who arrived in the United Kingdom in October 2018 at the age of 15. The Appellant was encountered working in a nail bar the following month and taken into care by Lambeth Social Services. The Appellant attended a screening interview on 24 December 2018 and substantive interview on 20 January 2021. It was the Appellant’s claim that he had been subjected to forced labour in Vietnam and had been trafficked to the United Kingdom and would be subjected to re-trafficking on return. His application for protection was refused on 19 June 2023 and his appeal against refusal was dismissed following a hearing on 12 November 2024.
7. The first ground of appeal asserts that the Judge did not give sufficient reasons why he found the Appellant’s account of his inability to speak freely with his father when under control of Mr Tan, nor his treatment at the hands of agents not to be credible, and not to amount to trafficking. Further, the Judge did not give adequate reasons why he finds that the financial arrangements engaged in must mean that the Appellant was sent to the UK for economic reasons by his father.
8. In our judgment this assertion is not made out. Ms Norman even accepted that there were occasions when he spoke without Mr Tan overhearing; indeed that was accepted by the appellant in his asylum interview. The Judge gives very clear and sustainable reasons (at paragraph 6) of the decision
I also find that he maintained regular contact with his father by phone (AIR Q85). He said in oral evidence that he was monitored by Mr Tan and could not speak freely about his ill- treatment. I find this is not credible. Over a three-year period, it is clear he would have spoken without being overheard on occasions. Indeed, he was able to arrange with his father to get funds to support his trip to the UK through the help of an agent (AIR Q93-135). This involved the sale of the family home and must have involved many conversations about a great many issues. He was repeatedly unable to explain how he did this whilst being monitored. Furthermore, I find that he was not held by force (AIR Q87-91) and could have left. He was in contact with his father throughout and could have been moved to another house by the former if the problem was solely the conditions of living with the Tan family.
9. These reasons are further explained at paragraph 7 where the amount raised by the Appellant’s father and through relatives or neighbours is highlighted. It is in our judgement beyond peradventure that a simple transfer to the care of another household, or even at the age of almost 16, to supported independent living would have been significantly less costly. Economic betterment is the only reasonable explanation for the expenditure of £30,000. Equally the expenditure of such a sum is wholly inconsistent with the suggestion that the expected solution, for this expenditure, was to join his father in Taiwan.
10. Given the above the remainder of the points raised in the first ground are of little consequence. The Appellant was living in poor conditions with Mr Tan. The First- tier Tribunal found that his father came to know about this and that more straightforward and less costly options than to travel to the United Kingdom with people smugglers would have been available. The findings as a whole are clear and sustainable and there is in our judgment no error of law.
11. The second ground, where it is asserted the findings were not reasonably open to the Tribunal, falls away with the first. In our judgement it was entirely reasonable and understandable given the evidence for the Tribunal to find that the Appellant spoke to his father to let him know about the conditions in which he was living and also communicated with his father regarding the arrangements made by his father for him to leave Vietnam. These findings were manifestly open to the Tribunal.
12. The third ground asserts an error of law in relation to the CPIN asserting that the conclusion that the Appellant does not fit the profile of someone at risk of re- trafficking on return is wrong. In our judgment this assertion is not made out. Firstly the findings already made in respect of both Mr Tan and the agents are sustainable. Mr Tan was caring, if poorly and exploitatively, for the Appellant when he was a child. The Judge found and there can be no reasonable suggestion that the Appellant would be forced in some way to go back to live with Mr Tan. Consideration of the CPIN was properly dealt with at paragraph 10
I have considered the CPIN ‘Vietnam: Victims of Trafficking’ 2020. I have found that this appellant was not trafficked and, in any event, apart from the lack of a family or support network, he does not show any other characteristics that might make him vulnerable to trafficking.
13. This reasoning cannot be described as inadequate. The prime issue is that this was a decision which quite clearly took into account all factors in the round before a conclusion was reached. The judge made findings on the conditions the appellant lived under in Vietnam and did not accept there was evidence that Mr Tan would seek in any way to locate the appellant. The appellant was no longer a minor, could speak the language and albeit in a less than caring situation had had experience of working and would be in receipt of the Home Office voluntary departure grant. The judge had already recorded that the expert report stated that it was likely that the appellant could acquire new legal identity document[s] despite lacking current papers. Even if he had to go to his home district the judge found on sound reasoning ‘neither Mr Tan nor any smugglers pose a threat to his safety’ and ‘Mr Tan has no wider influence or connections and would have no interest in pursuing the appellant. The Judge takes into account both negative and positive factors. It is a manifestly well-reasoned decision and in our judgment no error of law is made out.
Conclusion
14. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of a material error of law. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal stands.

Signed: Date: 4 May 2025

J F W Phillips
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal