Newsletter archive

On 22 December 2009 US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that all 65,000 H-1B cap subject visas have been fully used up for the fiscal year of 2010. Any H-1B visa applications properly filed by 21 December 2009 will be subject to a computer generated random selection process.Unfortunately, this means that some properly completed H-1B visa petitions will be returned. The fact that all H-1B visas have now been used may be a sign of economic recovery in the US.

The Canadian Government has announced recently that temporary residents applying for work permits or wishing to extend their visit in Canada can now apply online. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney had the following to say: “Extending our online services to more temporary residents will significantly facilitate the application process by providing faster, more accessible and efficient services.” Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) commented that applications submitted online have to...

From 6 January 2010 all those extending their stay under the Tier 2 visa including dependents will need to apply for an identity card. In November 2008 the UK Border Agency started issuing compulsory identity cards for a number of non EU nationals applying to extend their stay in the UK. The categories of people who require identity cards continues to increase.

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies a special interest group feels that the Tier 2 (Intra company transfer) visa category of the points-based system has resulted in Indian IT companies bringing in lower paid overseas workers to the UK. The Government has stated that all employers have to pay the “Going Rate” for the job under the Tier 2 intra company transfer visa. The Government says that it is not true that overseas workers transferred from an overseas office to the UK office are paid less than...

The Minister of State for Borders and Immigration , Phil Woolas, has put forward regulations in Parliament for the fees for immigration and nationality services. The fees for many services are higher than the normal administrative cost for the services. In most cases the fees have not changed that much. The increase has been kept at less than ten percent. In some cases GBP50 per person is allocated to the Migration Impacts Fund to help communities affected by immigration . It is interesting to note that for some dependent relative applications the fee has doubled or tripled in price. The Government feels that higher fees are justified to pay for the higher social and health care costs to look after elderly relatives.

On 26 January 2010 almost 16 500 people from 144 countries became Australian citizens as Australia celebrated...