Immigration newsletter 18 Dec 2012

Canada will launch the new Canadian Federal Skilled Trades Program or FSTP on January 2nd 2013. The FSTP will allow skilled tradespeople to apply for Canadian permanent resident status if they have a job offer in Canada, speak adequate English and have two years’ experience in a skilled trade. 3,000 applications will be accepted in the first year.

Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney said the FSTP would help address serious labour shortages in some parts of Canada. 
Among the tradespeople that will be able to apply are
 

• Electricians
• Welders and
• Pipefitters

The latest UK census, completed in 2011, shows that the number of foreign-born people living in England and Wales rose by about two thirds in the decade to 2011. There are now 7.5m foreign born people in England and Wales; about 13% of the total population. The highest number of immigrants came from India, Poland and Pakistan.

Only 45% of Londoners are now 'white British'. 18.5% are of Asian origin. 13% are black and 15% are white but not British.

The UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, has announced that, from April next year, the UK Border Agency will interview over 100,000 people a year who have applied for UK Tier 4 student visas. 

Mrs May said that a pilot study had shown that many applicants for student visas were bogus. She said that the interviews would be focused on high risk countries and would soon be carried out on applicants for other UK visas too.

Canada will soon require people from 29 countries and the Palestinian Territory to provide biometric information with their visa applications. The countries are mainly in Africa and Asia. Applicants will be required to submit a photograph and have their photographs taken; these will be kept on a database. The system will come into operation in 2013. 

Biometric data will have to be provided by everyone aged between 14 and 79, who travels to Canada from one of the countries concerned unless they already have a Canadian permanent resident permit. Diplomats will also be excused.

Immigration is changing the racial makeup of the United States. 17% of American citizens are of Hispanic descent. Most of these are from Mexico and many are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. A further 5%, about 15,000,000 people, is of Asian descent.
In total, there are 15.1m 

US citizens who were born overseas and a further 12.2m foreign born people who have permanent resident status. 
There are also 11.1m illegal immigrants in the US. 55% of these are Mexicans. A further 25% are from the rest of Latin America. About 1.1m illegal immigrants are from Asia.  

The former US president George W Bush has told a Washington audience that immigrants can help America 'build a better tomorrow'. Mr Bush was a Republican president of the US between 2000 and 2008. Since then, the Republicans are seen as having become ‘anti-immigrant.

Pollsters say that this perception has caused many ethnic minority voters to vote Democrat. 91% of African Americans, 73% of Asian Americans and 71% of Hispanic Americans voted for the Democrats in November 2012.Mr Bush's intervention will be seen as an attempt to direct his party back towards the centre ground. Mr Bush said 'immigrants come with new skills and ideas. They work hard for a better life.' 

The UK's chief inspector of immigration has told MPs that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) provides 'shockingly poor' customer service. John Vine also told the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee that the agency had failed to deal properly with a huge backlog of asylum cases.

He said that an inspection had revealed that many letters sent to the agency were second or third requests for information. 'By any benchmark, that is a poor level of service,' he said.