Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER Case Nos: UI-2026-002332
UI-2026-002334
First-tier Tribunal Nos: HU/56342/2024
HU/56343/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 17 August 2026

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HOFFMAN

Between

NIKITABEN DINESKUMAR PATEL
NIMESH NAVINCHANDRA VYAS
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellants
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr G Hodgetts of Counsel, instructed by London Imperial Immigration Services
For the Respondent: Mr M Pugh, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 16 July 2026

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellants appeal, with permission, against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal Judge F M O’Hagan (“the judge”) dated 8 March 2026 dismissing their human rights appeals.
2. For the reasons set out below, the appeals are dismissed.
Background
3. The appellants are nationals of India and are married to each other. They entered the United Kingdom in 2007 (the second appellant) and 2009 (the first appellant) on student visas. They met in 2009 and married in 2013. They have two children. P was born in 2021 and N was born in 2023.
4. Both appellants successfully applied to extend their visas until 8 February 2016, at which point they were refused indefinite leave to remain. A human rights application was rejected in 2018 and a subsequent human rights application refused on 1 March 2019 with an out-of-country right of appeal.
5. The appellants failed to leave the United Kingdom and, on 29 September 2022, they again applied for leave to remain on human rights grounds. In decisions dated 31 May 2024, the respondent refused the appellants’ applications. She found that they did not meet the requirements for leave to remain on private or family life grounds under the Immigration Rules and, furthermore, there were no exceptional circumstances or compassionate grounds that would warrant a grant of leave outside of the Rules. In reaching her finding on whether leave should be granted outside of the Rules, the respondent took into account the appellants’ claim that P was stateless (N had not yet been born when the application was made). However, the respondent found that the appellants had failed to provide any evidence or a reasonable explanation as to why he could not be registered as an Indian citizen.
6. The appellants exercised their rights of appeal against the respondent’s decisions.
The appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
7. The First-tier Tribunal judge accepted that the appellants and their children had established a private life in the UK and accepted that both children were stateless because they had not been registered as Indian citizens. The judge found that statelessness would probably have a detrimental impact on the children and was a factor weighing in the appellants’ favour. However, the judge found that there was no evidence before it demonstrating what practical consequences the children’s statelessness would have in India, including in relation to access to education or healthcare. Weighing that factor against the appellants’ lengthy residence in India before coming to the UK, their education, work experience, language skills, family support available in India, and the absence of evidence that their son’s medical condition required treatment that was unavailable there, the judge concluded that the appellants had not shown very significant obstacles to integration in India. For substantially the same reasons, the Tribunal found that the children’s statelessness and the eldest child’s medical history did not amount to exceptional circumstances giving rise to unjustifiably harsh consequences under Article 8 ECHR, such that the public interest in immigration control outweighed the factors relied upon by the appellants and the appeals were dismissed.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
8. The appellants were granted permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal by First-tier Tribunal Judge Head on 8 May 2026. The appellants advance the following grounds of appeal (many of which overlap):
a. The judge materially erred in law by accepting that the appellants’ children were stateless but then failing properly to consider the impact of that statelessness on whether there would be very significant obstacles to the family’s integration in India.
b. Having found that the children were stateless and that statelessness would probably be detrimental, the judge failed to give adequate reasons by not identifying the nature or extent of that detriment or analysing its effect on the children’s ability to integrate in India.
c. The judge failed to conduct an adequate assessment of the children’s best interests under s.55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, in particular by failing properly to consider the implications of their statelessness for their identity, welfare, future prospects and access to services.
d. The judge erred by assuming, without evidential foundation, that the children would acquire Gujarati quickly on return to India, notwithstanding the finding that they spoke only English.
e. The judge failed adequately to consider the impact of the children’s inability to communicate freely in India on their education, social integration and emotional wellbeing, and thereby failed to conduct a sufficient best-interests assessment.
f. The judge failed properly to apply the principles in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Kamara [2016] EWCA Civ 813, in that integration requires a broad assessment of a person’s ability to participate in society, build relationships and access services, including consideration of language difficulties.
g. In relation to Article 8 ECHR, the judge misapplied the “exceptional circumstances” test by placing undue reliance on the appellants’ failure to meet the Immigration Rules and by failing properly to consider whether the children’s statelessness would give rise to unjustifiably harsh consequences.
h. The conclusion that no exceptional circumstances existed was inadequately reasoned and internally inconsistent, given the acceptance that the children were stateless and that such status would probably be detrimental.
i. The judge failed to consider the practical consequences of removal arising from the children’s statelessness, including the contention that, absent recognition by any state as nationals, they could not readily be removed to India or another country.
The hearing
9. I had before me the consolidated hearing bundle and Mr Hodgetts’ skeleton argument. The appellants also produced a supplementary bundle of evidence. It was explained that this material related to the position of stateless children in India and had not been before the First-tier Tribunal. Mr Hodgetts confirmed that the appellants did not seek to rely upon that evidence for the purposes of the error of law hearing. Rather, should the appeal proceed to a rehearing, they would seek permission to adduce it at that stage.
10. For the appellants, Mr Hodgetts submitted that the First-tier Tribunal erred in its treatment of the children’s statelessness. He argued that, having accepted at [23] that the children were stateless, and having found at [24] that their statelessness would probably be detrimental to them, the judge failed adequately to analyse the nature and significance of that detriment when assessing integration and proportionality. Reliance was placed on MS (Ivory Coast) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWCA Civ 133 in support of the proposition that it would have been speculative for the judge to assume that any future application for citizenship, whether British or Indian, would succeed. Whilst accepting that there was an evidential gap as to the practical impact of statelessness in India, Mr Hodgetts submitted that the judge’s finding that statelessness would probably be detrimental was inconsistent with the absence of any further analysis of that issue. He further argued that the impact of the children’s statelessness was a central feature of the case and that the failure to address that issue rendered the reasoning inadequate. In reply, he submitted that the respondent’s suggestion that the judge may have assumed the children could subsequently obtain citizenship merely illustrated the lack of clear findings and reasons on the point.
11. For the respondent, Mr Pugh submitted that the First-tier Tribunal had accepted that the children were stateless but was entitled to conclude that the appellants had failed to provide evidence establishing what practical consequences that status would have in India. He argued that any detriment arising from statelessness could not be assessed or weighed in the appellants’ favour without evidence quantifying the nature and extent of the alleged disadvantage, and that the burden of providing such evidence rested on the appellants. Referring to CAO v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] UKSC 32, he submitted that the appellants had been professionally represented before the First-tier Tribunal and that there was no obligation on the judge to adjourn or undertake further enquiries to remedy shortcomings in the evidence. In relation to the language ground, he submitted that the judge’s conclusion that the children would learn Gujarati quickly was not an unreasonable assumption and that there was no evidence regarding any difficulties they would face in Indian schools. As to Article 8, Mr Pugh argued that the judge had not treated the appellants’ inability to satisfy the Immigration Rules as determinative but had instead carried out a proper and orthodox proportionality assessment at [30]-[35], weighing all material factors before reaching a holistic conclusion that removal would be proportionate.
12. At the end of the hearing, I reserved my decision.
Discussion
13. While the appellants were granted permission to appeal on nine grounds, those grounds are overlapping and, in several respects, repetitive. The principal focus of the challenge concerns the judge’s treatment of the children’s statelessness and the consequences flowing from that finding. In his skeleton argument, Mr Hodgetts has attempted to distil the grounds into a more coherent structure, which I adopt below.
Grounds 1 to 3: Statelessness
14. At [20], the judge made the following findings:
“The Appellants say that they have been unable to register their son in the Indian High Commission, he is therefore not an Indian citizen and is stateless. There is a letter from the High Commission (92) which relates to the Appellants’ eldest son and confirms that “no application for birth registration as a citizen of India has been received” in respect of him. The Appellants confirmed in oral evidence that the youngest child has also not been registered as an Indian citizen. When it was put to the Appellants that this is not evidence that an application on behalf of their son has been refused by the High Commission, but rather that one has not in fact been made, they said that their passports were with the Home Office and they were unable to withdraw them in order to register their children.”
15. That passage raises two important points. First, it correctly recognises that the evidence before the First-tier Tribunal was not that the Indian authorities had refused to register the appellants’ children as Indian citizens, but rather that no application for their registration had ever been made. Secondly, on the appellants’ own evidence, the sole reason advanced for that omission was that the Home Office retained possession of their Indian passports.
16. In those circumstances, it would, in my judgment, have been open to the judge to conclude that the appellants could reasonably be expected to apply for the registration of their children as Indian citizens, either before their departure from the United Kingdom if their passports were returned to them, or after their return to India. The judge did not, however, determine the case on that basis. Instead, at [23], she made the following findings:
“I accept that the Appellants’ children are stateless. I take into account that there is no evidence of applications pending with the Respondent in relation to that matter and that the specific issue of statelessness is not for me to determine. I cannot speculate as to what the outcome would be if the Appellants were to seek legal advice in relation to the issue of the statelessness of their children and act on any such advice received.”
(The reference to the appellants having not made an application to the respondent is a reference to the ability of a stateless minor to apply to register as a British citizen under Schedule 2 of the British Nationality Act 1981 (as amended by s.11 of the Nationality and Border Act 2022). The respondent may not register such a child if it is reasonable to expect that they, or a person acting on their behalf, can take steps to enable them to acquire citizenship of another country: see paragraph 3A of Schedule 2. At [23], the judge is therefore declining to speculate on what might happen if the children applied for British, and not Indian, citizenship.)
17. The judge then proceeded at [24] to say:
“Regarding the question which I am concerned with, i.e. whether there are significant obstacles to integration to India, I find that there is no evidence submitted on what the impact of being stateless in India would be for the Appellants’ two children, how that may or may not impact their access to, for example, education or medical treatment. However, I find it probable that it would have some impact, and I have taken into account that being stateless in India would probably be to one’s detriment.”
18. The appellants’ primary complaint is that, having accepted at [23] that the children are stateless and acknowledged at [24] that their statelessness would likely have some detrimental effect upon them if returned to India, the judge erred in failing to conclude that this amounted to a very significant obstacle to their re-establishing their private lives there. It is further contended that the judge erred by failing to identify the nature of the detriment that the children would suffer.
19. However, it was for the appellants to establish the nature of the detriment their children would suffer in India as a consequence of their statelessness. No evidence addressing that issue was before the First-tier Tribunal. Contrary to Mr Hodgetts’ submission, the duty under s.55 did not require the judge, of her own motion and in the absence of any application by the appellants, to adjourn the hearing to enable such evidence to be obtained. Nor do I accept that CAO required the judge to embark upon her own investigation of the effects of statelessness in India. The appellants were professionally represented, were aware that statelessness formed the centrepiece of their case, and they had been afforded a full opportunity to adduce evidence on that issue. The circumstances contemplated in CAO at [48] were not present here.
20. Accordingly, the judge was entitled to approach the matter as she did at [24] and to decline to speculate as to the effects that statelessness might have on the children in terms of their ability to integrate, and her reasons were adequate.
21. I also reject Mr Hodgetts’ submission that, because the children were stateless at the date of the hearing, the judge was required to assess the appeal on the basis that any possible avenue by which their lack of nationality might be resolved had to be left entirely out of account. Such an approach would have been artificial and unrealistic. It would also have risked rewarding the parents’ failure to pursue the available steps by which their children’s nationality status might be regularised.
Ground 4: The children’s best interests
22. The grounds of appeal contend that the judge failed properly to assess the children’s best interests, including by failing to take account of their inability to communicate in Gujarati and, consequently, to participate fully in society in India.
23. At [34], the judge found that the children’s best interests lay in remaining with their parents. Given the children’s very young ages, that was an unsurprising and entirely appropriate finding.
24. The language issue is addressed at [25]. There, the judge recorded the appellants’ evidence that, although they spoke Gujarati to one another, they communicated only in English with their children, who, it was said, spoke no other language. The judge made no express finding as to whether that evidence was accepted, and it may well be that it was not disputed by the respondent. Nevertheless, the judge accepted that, although “there would be a period during which their children will not be able to communicate freely”, “they are both very young and will be able to learn the language quickly”. Given that P was five years old and N was two years old at the date of the First-tier Tribunal hearing, that was plainly a finding that was open to the judge on the evidence before her. Contrary to what is asserted in the grounds of appeal, the judge was not required to refer to evidence to show that young children are capable of learning a new language.
25. I reject the appellants’ submission that either the language issue or the question of statelessness, whether considered individually or cumulatively, required a conclusion that the children’s best interests were served by remaining in the United Kingdom. It is clear from [20] that the judge was fully aware that the children had not been refused Indian citizenship. Rather, no application for Indian citizenship had been made on their behalf. The only reason advanced for that failure was that the Home Office was in possession of the parents’ passports. On the evidence before the judge, that was a temporary impediment rather than a permanent barrier. As noted above, the judge's reference to the absence of any application to the respondent reflected the potential availability of the statutory registration route under the British Nationality Act 1981. No such application had been made. In those circumstances, where no attempt had been made to pursue either the Indian citizenship route or the potential statutory registration route under the 1981 Act, there was no rational basis upon which the judge could have been expected to conclude that the children’s best interests required them to remain in the United Kingdom, notwithstanding the family’s inability to satisfy the requirements of the Immigration Rules.
26. The appellants also relied on P's medical history. However, the judge expressly considered that issue at [15]-[19] and found there was no evidence that any treatment required by him would be unavailable in India, a finding which is not challenged as irrational.
27. Further, it is well established that, although a child’s best interests are a primary consideration, they are not the paramount consideration in the Article 8 balancing exercise: see ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4 at [25]. They may nevertheless be outweighed by the public interest. On the facts before the First-tier Tribunal, I am satisfied that the judge’s conclusions, both as to the absence of very significant obstacles and as to proportionality outside the Immigration Rules, were plainly open to her.
Ground 5: Misapplication of Article 8 ECHR
28. The grounds contend that the Article 8 assessment is internally inconsistent because, although the judge accepted that the children were stateless and that their statelessness would probably be detrimental to them, she nevertheless concluded that there were no exceptional circumstances in their case. I reject that submission. Reading the decision fairly and as a whole, and in particular the reasoning at [20]-[24], it is clear why the judge, despite accepting that some weight fell to be attached to the children’s statelessness, did not regard that factor as determinative of the appeal. The judge’s reasoning demonstrates that she considered the significance of the children’s statelessness in the context of the evidence as a whole, including the absence of evidence as to its practical consequences and the fact that no steps had been taken to pursue the available routes by which the children might acquire a nationality. In those circumstances, there is no inconsistency between the judge’s acceptance that statelessness was a factor weighing in the appellants’ favour and her ultimate conclusion that the high threshold of exceptional circumstances was not met.
29. Insofar as the appellants contend that the judge attached excessive weight to the family’s failure to meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules, that submission is unsustainable. It is well established that a failure to satisfy the Rules is a weighty, albeit not determinative, factor in the Article 8 proportionality assessment: see Agyarko v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 11 at [47]-[48]. Accordingly, there is no merit in this aspect of the appeal.
30. Finally, while not relied upon by Mr Hodgetts in his skeleton argument or oral submissions, the appellants contend that the judge failed to consider the practical consequences of the children’s statelessness in the context of their removal. It is not clear that this issue was expressly raised before the judge; certainly, it was not advanced in the appellants’ skeleton argument. If that issue was not raised before the judge, it is difficult to see how she could be criticised for failing expressly to address it. In any event, had the judge addressed the point, she would, in my judgment, have been required to take account of the fact that the only identified impediment to the children’s admission to India was the parents’ failure to apply for their registration as Indian citizens. There was no evidence that such an application could not be made. Indeed, it was open to the appellants to seek the return of their passports from the Home Office for that purpose. In those circumstances, I do not consider that the practical consequences of the children’s present statelessness could properly have been regarded as a factor carrying significant weight in the appellants’ favour in the Article 8 proportionality assessment, still less one capable of tipping the balance in their favour.

Notice of Decision
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal did not involve the making of an error of law. The decision shall stand.
The appeals are dismissed.

M R Hoffman

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
30th July 2026