It has been almost a year since the introduction of new draconian immigration rules relating to family migration. We shared some of our concerns about the changes in a previous blog, ‘New rules for family migration – unrealistic specified documents’, and evidence would now suggest that these rules continue to result in partners being split up.
Couples torn apart by UK family migration rules
9th April 2013
The mysterious case of UK fears about Bulgarians and Romanians
19th February 2013
February 2013 has been an active month for press coverage around the UK Government’s fears that Bulgarian and Romanian nationals will flock to the UK in 2014 when transitional restrictions on work are finally lifted. The second week of February was particularly lively with the Prime Minister making a statement every day about various measures the Government is taking to end migration. In the midst of the noise and fury, it is easy to lose track of the facts. Perhaps we should remind ourselves about some of them now.
The media has widely reported today that the UKBA has a backlog of around 16,000 cases, some of which date back a decade, as uncovered by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. For those of us representing clients in this arena, this news is hardly surprising. The UKBA is racked with delays across many of its areas of operation and these are bound to increase as limited resources are spread ever thinner across the agency.
Applying to naturalise as a British Citizen – are you of good character?
18th January 2013
Those applying for naturalisation now need to be aware that any criminal convictions and tax issues can be taken into account when their applications are assessed.
On 13 December 2012, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) announced a change to the way it assesses criminal convictions and this affects how the UKBA will assess the ‘good character’ requirement for naturalisation applications. No longer will criminal convictions be considered ‘spent’ but instead they will be evaluated according to a ‘sentence based threshold’.
Employing migrant workers: A checklist for compliance
20th November 2012
Supermarket giant Tesco has recently been fined £115,000 for employing foreign students who were breaking the conditions of their visas. This follows shortly after the decision by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to suspend the Tier 4 sponsor licence of the London Metropolitan University, due to the non-compliance with its sponsor licence duties.
These high profile cases along with other recently reported cases on the UKBA website clearly show that the UKBA will not hesitate to take action against employers or academic institutions, whether big or small, who fail to comply with their licence obligations.
Ilda de Sousa provides a checklist for how employers can ensure that they are compliant.
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