Students

In the most recent measure announced with respect to its Points Based System the UK Border Agency has announced that people currently in the United Kingdom in specific immigration categories which will be deleted as the Points Based System is implemented may complete their leave to remain under the existing terms of that leave.   If they apply successfully to extend their leave in their existing categories they will be granted enough further leave to remain to entitle them to apply for settlement in the UK at the expiry of that  further leave to remain.  

As part of the BIA (the Border and Immigration Agency)’s delivery of its Borders, Immigration and Identify Action Plan which was launched in December of 2006 - on 6 March 2008 the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration Liam Byrne issued the government’s policy statement Introducing compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals.  The document sets out the government’s plans to require all foreign nationals to possess identity cards.  It pledges that by 2014/15 90% of foreign nationals will have identity cards.

The Border and Immigration Agency (the “BIA”) has published its “statement of intent” regarding Tier 1 of its Points Based System.  Tier 1 is due to be implemented in the first quarter of 2008.  

Following urgent legal intervention by Gherson solicitors a student has resisted his removal from the UK after his leave to remain as a student was wrongly cancelled by an immigration officer.   His leave is shortly to be reinstated and he is now awaiting the outcome of his application for an extension of stay as a highly skilled migrant.  

UKvisas, the joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office service dealing with applications for visas to come to the UK, has published the Report of the Independent Investigation: Breach of Data Security in the VFS Online UK Visa Application Facility, Operated Through VFS Websites in India, Nigeria and Russia. Linda Costelloe Baker, the Independent Monitor for entry clearance cases without right of appeal, was the Independent Investigator. 

Under the Highly-Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), candidates score points for earnings, academic qualifications, age and having worked previously in the UK.  One of the most controversial aspects of the revised scheme introduced in December 2006 is that a person without a degree (including vocational and professional qualifications) which is equivalent to a UK Bachelors degree will not qualify under the scheme, whatever their earnings. The scheme no longer takes account of work experience, save for awarding points for having previously worked in the UK. 

Considerable media attention has been given to the United States' offer to give skilled foreign workers the opportunity to settle permanently in the United States of America, an offer that was withdrawn almost as soon as it was made. On 12 June 2007 the US State department published its June Visa Bulletin. This said that almost all the foreign workers previously considered eligible for a visa sponsored by a US employer could apply for the coveted ‘green card’, giving them the right to live and work permanently in the US. The deadline for applications was 2 July 2007. But on 2 July 2007 the US State Department issued an update to the June Visa Bulletin. This said that, with immediate effect, there would be no further authorisations of green cards based on employment.

The House of Lords in the UK parliament is continuing its scrutiny of the proposals for new immigration legislation in the UK, the UK Borders Bill.

Much of the debate in the Grand Committee of the House of Lords has been about proposals that people given leave to enter (a visa) or remain in the UK should carry a biometric identity document. The UK currently does not have a system of identity cards for nationals, although it has passed a law, the Identity Cards Act 2006, that would allow it to introduce such a system in the future.

The UK Home Office is consulting on proposals radically to ‘simply’ UK immigration law. The consultation paper includes a discussion of the Points-Based system being introduced for those coming to work or undertake economic activity in the UK.

In JJ and SS (Student; regular attendance; which course?) Gambia [2007] UKAIT 00050 AIT, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) considered the requirements of ‘regular attendance’, as set out in the UK Immigration Rules relating to students.