Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case Nos: UI-2025-004607
& UI-2025- 004810

First-tier Tribunal Nos: HU/00409/2025
& EA/00159/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 14th January 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KEBEDE

Between

ALEKSANDRS SMIRNOVS
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr S Peer, of Peer & Co Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms S Keerthy, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 9 January 2026

DECISION AND REASONS

1. The appellant is a citizen of Latvia, born on 14 October 2001. He appeals, with permission, against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeals against two decisions: the respondent’s decision of 13 January 2025 to make a deportation order against him (the EA decision) and the respondent’s decision of 28 February 2025 to refuse his human rights claim further to the deportation order made against him under section 32(5) of the UK Borders Act 2007 (the HU decision).

2. The appellant claims to have first come to the UK in 2003/4 as a child. He came to the UK with his father and older brother following his parent’s divorce and claims to have had no contact with his mother since then. On 5 August 2019 he was granted indefinite leave to remain through the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS).

3. On 18 October 2022 the appellant was convicted of ‘threatening words/behaviours likely to cause harm/distress’ and was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge which was varied on the 06 July 2023 to a £100.00 fine. On 12 May 2023 he was convicted of ‘threatening words/behaviours likely to cause harm/distress and battery’ and was sentenced to a community order with a curfew requirement. On 19 April 2024 he was convicted of being concerned in the supplying of Class A drugs (Cocaine) and possessing a controlled Class A drug (Cocaine) with intent to supply, and was sentenced to 44 months’ imprisonment.

4. As a result of that latter conviction, the respondent, on 6 June 2024, issued a stage 1 deportation decision pursuant to the Immigration Act 1971 and the UK Borders Act 2007, whereby the appellant’s deportation was deemed to be conducive to the public good under section 3(5)(a) and in accordance with section 32(5) of the UK Borders Act 2007. On 13 January 2025 the respondent made a revised Notice of Decision to make a Deportation Order under the UK Borders Act 2007, which was served on the appellant on 14 January 2025, advising him of his right of appeal under regulation 6 of the Immigration (Citizens’ Rights Appeals) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. The appellant was invited to make representations as to why he should not be deported from the UK. He did so in a statement of additional grounds under section 120 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, dated 6 February 2025, in which he made a human rights claim based upon his family and private life in the UK with his father and brother, his residence in the UK since the age of four years, and his lack of a home or any meaningful ties in Latvia, claiming that his deportation would be disproportionate and would violate his human rights under Article 8 ECHR.

5. The respondent considered the appellant’s human rights claim and made a decision on 28 February 2025 refusing that claim in a stage 2 deportation decision. A deportation order was signed on the same day, pursuant to section 32(5) of the UK Borders Act 2007. In the decision refusing the appellant’s human rights claim, the respondent accepted that the appellant had been lawfully resident in the UK for most of his life but did not accept that he was socially and culturally integrated in the UK and did not accept that there would be very significant obstacles to his integration in Latvia or very compelling circumstances which outweighed the public interest in his deportation.

6. The appellant appealed against both decisions, and the appeals were listed together and heard in the First-tier Tribunal on 5 August 2025. The First-tier Tribunal Judge heard live evidence from the appellant, his brother and his father. The judge noted that the appellant had given evidence which was inconsistent with his father’s evidence as to whether he had ever retuned to Latvia, and concluded that the appellant’s evidence was not truthful, finding that he had returned to Latvia several times since coming to the UK albeit not for a number of years. The judge found that the appellant was choosing not to be forthcoming about adjudications in prison which he considered damaged his credibility. Likewise he found that the appellant’s denial of involvement in drug dealing prior to the index offence was inconsistent with the OASys report and again undermined his credibility. The judge had concerns about the appellant’s level of integration in the UK but, given his length of residence in the UK since coming here as a child, accepted that he was socially and culturally integrated in the UK. The judge did not, however, accept that there were very significant obstacles to the appellant’s integration in Latvia. He found that the appellant would be able to use both English and Russian to communicate in Latvia, although accepting that it would be harder than speaking Latvian, but considered that he could learn to speak Latvian within a reasonable period of time. The judge accepted that the appellant would probably be less employable in Latvia than in the UK but found it not necessarily by much. The judge accepted that the appellant had no relationship with his mother but considered that he would have at least some social connection with his paternal grandmother who lived in Latvia. The judge found that it would be feasible and reasonable to expect the appellant’s family to provide him with some support to supplement any state benefits he might get. The judge concluded that moving to Latvia would be difficult for the appellant but did not accept that there would be “very significant” obstacles to integration there, and found that the appellant did not meet the requirements of the private life exception to deportation. The judge considered the appellant’s offending, his length of residence in the UK and his family ties to the UK and found there to be no very compelling circumstances outweighing the public interest in his deportation. The judge accordingly dismissed the appeal on human rights grounds, finding that the EA appeal could therefore not succeed as conceded by the appellant. He dismissed both appeals in a decision promulgated on 11 August 2025.

7. The appellant sought permission to appeal against the judge’s decision. Permission was refused in the First-tier Tribunal, and the application was renewed to the Upper Tribunal on five grounds. Firstly, that there was procedural unfairness in the judge’s adverse credibility findings. Secondly, that the judge misapplied the test for “very significant obstacles to integration” to the appellant’s integration in Latvia under section 117C(4)(c) NIAA 2002. Thirdly, that the judge’s Article 8 proportionality assessment was flawed and failed to give weight to the fact that the appellant had lived in the UK since the age of five years. Fourthly, that the judge had failed to properly evaluate rehabilitation and risk. Fifthly, that the judge had failed to engage with relevant case law such as Secretary of State for the Home Department v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813, Maslov v. Austria - 1638/03 [2008] ECHR 546 and HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22.

8. Permission was granted in the Upper Tribunal as follows:

“I have decided to give permission on all grounds but not all grounds are of equal quality.
Ground 1, which attacks the finding that the appellant was not truthful, suffers from not showing how the alleged error was material.
I am, however, rather more concerned that it is arguable that the judge’s finding on the appellant’s ability to establish himself in Latvia are based on speculation rather than evidence and that the Judge failed to consider or apply properly the decision in Maslov v Austria (2008) 47 EHRR 20. It is clear that the appellant has lived in the United Kingdom since he was aged 5 years..”

9. The respondent produced a rule 24 response opposing the appeal and the appellant provided a rule 25 response in reply. Mr Peer also produced a skeleton argument for the hearing.

10. The matter came before myself for a hearing. Both parties made submissions, reflecting the grounds of appeal, rule 24 and rule 25 responses respectively. I have addressed the submissions in my analysis to follow.

Analysis

11. As a preliminary point, it is relevant to mention that there are citations from caselaw relied upon by Mr Peer in his grounds of appeal, rule 25 response and skeleton argument which appear in some instances to be misplaced and indeed simply wrong, as I mentioned at the hearing. In the introduction section of his rule 25 response Mr Peer referred to the case of Sofian Majera [2025] EWCA Civ 1597 as materially strengthening the appellant’s case on several key legal and procedural issues, and at paragraph 4 he relied upon Majera as reiterating the principles in Maslov, whereas that was not the case, and the case of Maslov did not in fact feature in the decision in Majera. I am therefore unable to accord weight to the citations upon which Mr Peer relied and I suggest that more care is taken in the citation and reliance on authorities.

12. Turning to the grounds themselves, it is submitted by Mr Peer in relation to the first ground that there was procedural unfairness in the judge’s credibility assessment and that he unfairly equated inconsistency with dishonesty. That was in relation to the judge’s finding at [14] where the judge identified an inconsistency between the evidence of the appellant and his father as to whether the appellant had ever returned to Latvia, noting that the appellant claimed in his statement that he had never returned to Latvia whereas his father’s evidence was that they used to go every two years or so and last went together eight or nine years ago. The judge found the appellant’s evidence in that respect to be clearly untruthful. I see no merit in Mr Peer’s submission that there was any unfairness in the judge making such a finding. The appellant had every opportunity to present his evidence before the Tribunal, through examination in chief and re-examination. He was legally represented and therefore had an opportunity through closing submissions to address inconsistencies in the evidence. The judge was not required to put each and every inconsistency to the appellant. The judge was fully and properly entitled to draw the adverse inferences that he did from what Ms Keerthy properly submitted was a material part of the evidence.

13. Furthermore, as Ms Keerthy submitted, there were various reasons given by the judge for finding the appellant’s credibility to be damaged, in addition to that particular inconsistency, including the concerns arising from his evidence about his adjudications in prison, at [15], and his denial of matters related to drugs use in contradiction to the OASys report, as referred to by the judge at [16]. None of those findings were challenged in the grounds or the rule 25 response and it was accordingly entirely open to the judge to make the adverse credibility findings that he did.

14. It is also asserted in the first ground that procedural unfairness arose from the judge’s dismissal of the suggestion of hostility towards Russian speakers in Latvia, given the lack of an adjournment to enable the appellant to obtain country evidence in relation to the matter. However the matter of the appellant’s ability to communicate in Latvia was raised in the deportation decision, at [38], and the appellant had therefore clearly been put on notice of the relevance of the issue to the question of ‘very significant obstacles to integration’ and had every opportunity to produce evidence in that regard for the hearing. The judge was accordingly perfectly entitled to take account of the lack of evidence to support the appellant’s claim and to make the findings that he did at [27]. There was no procedural unfairness arising from that, or from any of the judge’s adverse credibility findings, and I reject the assertions made in the grounds to the contrary. Ground one is not made out.

15. Ground two, which asserts that the judge misapplied the ‘very significant obstacles’ test, is equally lacking in merit. Although he did not specifically cite the authority in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813, the judge clearly referred to the relevant test at [11] and went on to apply that test at [26] to [35]. Mr Peer submitted that the judge relied on speculative assumptions and failed to make evidence-based findings, when finding that the appellant could safely speak Russian, that he could learn Latvian within a reasonable period of time, and that his prison qualifications would be recognised in Latvia. In his rule 25 response, at [3.2], Mr Peer relied again on Majera but the citation was simply wrong. The judge was, in any event, perfectly entitled to make the observations and findings that he did in regard to the circumstances the appellant would face on return to Latvia. He made findings at [26] to [28] which were, as Ms Keerthy submitted, consistent with the decision in Ackom v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 537. He addressed the appellant’s claims about the difficulties he would face in Latvia, but noted the absence of any supporting evidence and rejected the claims for reasons fully and cogently given. He noted at [31] that the appellant had not been honest about his connections to Latvia and was entitled to draw the inferences that he did in that regard. The judge’s assessment was a full and detailed one and he was fully and properly entitled to reach the conclusions that he did. Ground two is also not made out.

16. The third ground is the ground upon which permission was primarily granted. However, again, I do not consider it to have any merit. It is asserted that the judge’s proportionality assessment was flawed because he did not apply the principles in Maslov and he did not give weight to the appellant’s length and residence in the UK, the age at which he came to the UK, and his social and cultural integration in the UK. However, whilst the judge did not specifically cite the case of Maslov, he specifically referred, at [36], to paragraph 51 of HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22 which in turn adopted the criteria in Maslov and in other leading European authorities. The judge went on, from [37], to address each of those criteria. At [37] he considered the nature and seriousness of the appellant’s offence. I reject the assertion in the grounds that the judge erred by elevating the length of the appellant’s sentence to being a determinative indicator of the public interest, when it is clear from his findings that that was only part of his concerns and that he otherwise had regard to other relevant factors when considering the nature of the offending. It is not the case, as asserted in the grounds at [12], that the judge failed to engage with the sentencing judge’s remarks that he was “at the bottom of the hierarchy”, when that was specifically referred to and considered by the judge at [45] of his decision. Indeed there was a clear and detailed engagement with the Judge’s sentencing remarks from [45] to [49].

17. As for the appellant’s age on arrival in the UK and his length of residence here, that was a matter specifically considered and taken into account by the judge at [38]. At [39] he considered the time elapsed since the offence was committed and the appellant’s conduct during that period, noting specific concerns in that regard. At [40] to [43] the judge considered the appellant’s family and other ties to the UK, referring back, at [43], to the findings previously made where he had concluded at [25] that the appellant was socially and culturally integrated in the UK. The judge went on at [44] to consider the appellant’s ties to Latvia, again referring back to the findings made previously when assessing obstacles to integration. At [45] to [50] the judge considered the appellant’s rehabilitation and the risk of re-offending, again noting and setting out his concerns in that regard.

18. Having had regard to those detailed and cogently reasoned findings, it cannot possibly be said that the judge failed to take relevant matters into account. The judge clearly considered all the criteria set out in Maslov and gave weight to factors such as the appellant’s lengthy residence in the UK and the young age at which he entered the country. He considered the principles in Maslov and applied them to the appellant’s case. It is relevant to note, as Ms Keerthy submitted, that there were distinguishing features in the case of Maslov which did not apply to the appellant’s case, most notably being the age at which the appellant committed his offence, which the Court in Maslov emphasised at paragraphs 72 and 73 of its decision. However, to the extent that Maslov applied to the appellant’s circumstances, the judge clearly gave weight to the relevant principles and had full and careful regard to all relevant factors when assessing the weight to be given to the public interest in his deportation. There is accordingly no merit in the assertion in the grounds that the judge’s proportionality assessment was flawed, and ground three is not made out.

19. Mr Peer acknowledged that grounds four and five were weaker grounds and indeed there is nothing of merit in either ground. I agree with Ms Keerthy that the grounds are simply disagreements with the judge’s adverse findings. The judge considered all relevant matters, both positive and negative, when assessing the extent of the appellant’s rehabilitation and the risk of re-offending. At [39] he took account of the appellant’s two years without offending when on bail and at [48] he gave weight to the appellant’s work and studies in prison. The judge was, however, perfectly entitled to have regard to, and give weight to, the appellant’s prison adjudications, in his assessment. The judge conducted a full and properly balanced proportionality assessment, taking account of all relevant matters. The weight that he gave to the various matters was a matter for him. The judge properly assessed the appellant’s circumstances in line with relevant caselaw, applying the correct legal framework and the appropriate legal tests. There were no misdirections and no errors of law in the judge’s decision.

20. Accordingly, there is no merit in any of the challenges in the grounds. For the reasons given, I uphold the judge’s decision and dismiss the appellant’s appeal.

Notice of Decision

21. The making of the decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve a material error on a point of law requiring it to be set aside. The decision to dismiss the appeal stands.

Signed: S Kebede
Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

9 January 2026