Immigration newsletter 01 Jul 2010

It is usual for new Government Policy to be announced in the UK in the Queen’s speech. In reality the speech is based on what the Government of the day wishes to do rather than the Queen’s personal political views. The Queen had the following to say in her recent speech to the House of Lords:

“My Government will limit the number of non European Union economic migrants entering the United Kingdom and end the detention of children for immigration purposes.”

The UK Government confirmed after the Queen’s speech that the aim is to reduce immigration levels from outside the EU from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. It remains to be seen what will happen after the consultation period ends. It has been said that an immigration quota will be very harmful for the UK economy.

Recently the UK Government has announced that identity cards for immigrants and British citizens will be scrapped within 100 days. The National Identity Register which holds biographic and biometric fingerprint data of card holders will be destroyed. The new Government is giving this a great deal of priority; this was the first piece of legislation introduced by the Coalition Government.
UK Home Secretary Theresa May had the following to say:

'This bill is a first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them. 

'With swift Parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.'

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has recently made an announcement about bogus job offers to overseas nationals looking for work in the UK.  UK immigration warns that sometimes names of real UKBA officials are used in the job offers. 

Rob Yeldham, director of communications at UKBA made the following announcement:

'My name has been used in several apparent attempts to scam foreign professionals looking for work in the UK. We have referred cases to our security unit, but at this stage it is unclear what the nature of the scam is, or where in the world it is based. The best advice is to be careful of any unsolicited offers.' 

The workpermit.com name has also been misused at times. workpermit.com is one of the most popular immigration related websites in the World and one of the oldest established immigration consultancies in the World. Sometimes unscrupulous consultants deliberately design their website to look like the workpermit.com site and also try and sell work related services using the workpermit.com name. workpermit.com is a private consultancy firm providing independent immigration advice.

We are pleased to announce a new workpermit.com video covering the UK Tier 1 and Tier 2 visa schemes. This will be a brief overview of recent changes to the UK Tier visas.