Fears legal blunder dating back more than a decade has helped thousands of migrants stay in Britain

Huge numbers of migrants are feared to have won the right to come to Britain due to a legal blunder.

A judge has raised concerns that a large number of immigration appeals heard in the UK courts may have been illegitimate.

In a legal ruling, the judge warned the courts had been stripped of the power to hear a certain type of appeal in 2014 but, inexplicably, 'numerous' cases had continued to go ahead.

It suggests that thousands of appeals have been heard with no legal basis, with potentially hundreds or even thousands of migrants given permission to enter the country as a result.

A Daily Mail analysis shows 3,500 such cases have been heard in the upper immigration tribunal since 2014.

However, the true scope of the legal gaffe will be far higher because many more cases will have been heard in the lower immigration courts, whose rulings are not made public.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the development was 'deeply alarming'.

The issue came to light in a case involving Somali national Hinda Hassan Wasuge, who sought to enter the UK to live with her husband, who is a British citizen.

The legal blunder highlighted in an immigration tribunal ruling has been described as 'deeply alarming' by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp

Her application had been turned down by a British 'entry clearance officer', who decides whether or not to grant visas. 

First-tier immigration tribunal judge Daniel Wright ruled on Ms Wasuge's appeal against that decision.

The judge said the court's jurisdiction over such cases had been amended by the Immigration Act 2014, which set out how 'a person may appeal to the tribunal where the Secretary of State has made an immigration decision in relation to that person'.

He ruled that a decision made by an entry clearance officer does not count as a 'decision of the Secretary of State' and therefore it 'would not attract a right of appeal'.

'I find that an entry clearance officer is not legally equivalent to the Secretary of State,' he said.

'As a result, this tribunal has no jurisdiction to determine the present appeal.

'Therefore, I would have dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, even if [I] had not already decided that the appeal should be dismissed on the facts of the case in any event.'

Although Ms Wasuge's lawyers argued there had been 'numerous cases' where an appeal had been brought against a decision of an entry clearance officer, the judge said he had been 'unable to find … any case where the question of jurisdiction to hear the appeal was raised'. 

Immigration judge Daniel Wright wrote in his official ruling that due to legal changes the court had 'no jurisdiction' to consider an appeal against a decision made by an entry clearance officer

Although the ruling hinges on an apparent technicality, it may have far-reaching consequences.

It suggests that the immigration courts have not had the jurisdiction to hear this type of appeal over the last 12 years.

During that time, an analysis suggests thousands of such cases have been heard.

The Daily Mail has identified 3,487 upper immigration tribunal cases where entry clearance officers were named as the respondent or the appellant.

Since the start of this year such appeals have included Sudanese national Isra Ali Abdallah Ibrahim who was initially refused permission to join her refugee husband in the UK.

She appealed under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to 'private and family life' – and won.

In another case, Pakistani national Javed Iqbal – who had overstayed in this country on a student visa for nine years – appealed against the decision to refuse him a visa to live with his wife, a British national, and won.

In a separate case, three Ethiopians aged 13, 14 and 18 challenged an entry clearance officer's decision to refuse their application to join their half-brother – who had been granted asylum in the UK and is now a British citizen.

The tribunal granted them the right to have their case re-heard.

Uzbek national Anvar Amindjanovich Navruzov also won an appeal against a decision to refuse his application for a family permit – which was based on the fact his French ex-wife had 'settled status' here under Brexit transition rules.

A 70-year-old Vietnamese national, Tuoi Thi Tran, appealed against the refusal of her application to join her daughter, a naturalised British citizen.

The court heard she suffered from a number of serious health conditions and was unable to care for herself, and ordered the case to be re-heard.

In another case a family of eight Afghans won a new hearing after successfully appealing against a decision to refuse entry to Britain on the grounds they were in danger from the Taliban.

Tory MP Mr Philp said: 'This case is deeply alarming.

'Besides the 3,500 cases in the Upper Tribunal there may be tens of thousands more cases in the First Tier Tribunal where immigrants have been allowed in to join family members by a judge who had no jurisdiction and who overruled the Home Office.

'No wonder our borders are so open.

'The immigration legal system needs to be totally dismantled.

'The Conservatives have a plan to abolish the immigration tribunal and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

'Then Parliament and democratically elected ministers will decide who is let into the UK and who stays, not unelected judges.'

The Home Office sought to play down the significance of Judge Wright's ruling, saying: 'This is a First-tier Tribunal decision, which does not set a precedent or change the law.

'It also has no wider impact on the way the immigration system operates.'