When will UK visa application centres
in the US re-open?

The 22^nd June is now officially the day we “celebrate” Windrush. As I have written previously, it’s also to recognise the catastrophic mistake made by the government when they wrongly denied people the right to stay in the UK. The Windrush Report was commissioned to investigate how the immigration services managed to make such a huge mistake and gave recommendations with a view to those mistakes not happening again. I would argue that the government doesn’t seem to have incorporated the recommendations from the report, which is incredibly disappointing.

It has now been over two months since Russia launched its military invasion of Ukraine. Since then, thousands of people have died, towns and cities have been destroyed and 13 million people have been displaced. As a result, people around the World have mobilised to help in any way they can and Kingsley Napley also wants to play its part.

Launching on 30 May 2022, the High Potential Individual (“HPI”) visa will be one of several new immigration routes introduced by the Home Office this year. Designed to attract “the brightest and best” to the UK, the HPI visa appears to form part of the Government’s wider plan to deliver an ‘elite points based system’, as announced in their ‘Build Back Better: Plan for Growth’, to ensure the UK maintains its status as a “leading international hub for emerging and disruptive technologies”.

On 24 February 2022 Russian armed forces invaded Ukraine. At the time of writing, hostilities are on going. According to UNHCR over 4 million people have fled Ukraine mainly heading west towards and into EU Member States. On 4 March 2022, the EU opened a temporary protection scheme for Ukrainians (and others who were resident in Ukraine and had to flee) using a directive which was adopted in 2001 but had never been used since. In this blog we will examine the scope of the scheme in light of both the Decision which opened it and the Commission’s operational guidelines issued a few weeks later to clarify Member States obligations. The purpose is to understand what those fleeing Ukraine can expect to receive by way of assistance in the EU and compare the UK’s scheme with it.

As Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II has unfolded in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the House of Lords has finalised its reporting stage review of the Nationality and Borders Bill.

The UK government’s so far meagre UK immigration options for Ukrainians are set out in our FAQs.

The Tier 1 (Investor) category was abruptly chopped out of the UK’s immigration system for new applicants at 4pm on 17 February. After previous and on-going reviews, in what appears to have been a hot-headed moment responding to political tensions with Russia, the category has been closed to new applicants. Deadlines (called ‘sunset clauses’) of 17 February 2026 for extension applications and 17 February 2028 for settlement (indefinite leave to remain) applications have also been introduced for those already holding investor status.

As we look ahead to the immigration changes on the horizon for 2022, one big expectation is an expansion of the visa routes available to those looking to work in the UK. Such changes are very welcome given the UK’s on-going demand for top talent. Among those hotly anticipated additions, the Scale-up visa stands out. Here we look at it a little closer and consider what we might expect from this visa option.

Progressive developments in immigration law have become a rare phenomenon, so the Home Office’s new policy – which halves the route to settlement for certain young people who have resided in the UK for more than half of their lives – is welcome news.

Conviction cases are ordinarily relatively straightforward for regulators. If a registrant is convicted of a criminal offence, the regulator will generally treat the fact of the conviction as proof the offence was committed – and take action to protect the public accordingly. See Achina v General Pharmaceutical Council [2021] EWHC 415 (Admin) for an example of the difficulties registrants face when they attempt to ‘go behind’ the facts of a conviction.

With the UK Chancellor’s budget announcement tomorrow, many UK businesses will be hoping for some good news on the recruitment front to help alleviate current skills shortages across a range of industries. They are likely to get short shrift. The Government has repeatedly pushed back on requests for sector specific carve-outs to deal with post-Brexit recruitment blocks. Instead, its relentless focus has been on the much more popular and palatable high-skilled immigration, attracting the “brightest and the best” with a focus on innovation, research and technology and the exceptionally talented.   

The Nationality and Borders Bill, the government’s signature piece of legislation on immigration, shows questionable priorities at a time when the UK is in the midst of a wider immigration crisis.

The Youth Mobility Scheme allows employers to access younger workers from countries such as India and Iceland for two years. With skills shortages afflicting critical sectors, now might be the time for the government to consider a youth visa agreement with the EU.

From being the centrepiece of England’s post-Covid recovery with ‘eat out to help out’, the hospitality sector is now struggling to rebuild after lockdowns, furlough and rising food prices. At the same time many restaurants, cafes and pubs are coming up against the hard realities of a post-Brexit immigration policy and discovering what it means for their business.

You have come to the end of your long immigration journey, paid thousands of pounds to UKVI to obtain permission to enter, permission to stay and then, finally, indefinite leave to remain (ILR) (also called settlement). When obtaining ILR, individuals may understandably breathe a sigh of relief – it’s over! For many who, for various reasons, choose not to naturalise or register as British, ILR can provide adequate status to live and work in the UK permanently.

The vast majority of EU, EEA, and Swiss citizens who were UK residents by the end of last year were able to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme by the 30 June 2021 deadline. Applying to the EU Settlement Scheme meant that an EU citizen could stay in the UK for the long term.

The deadline to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme (“EUSS”) was 30 June 2021. But for those who missed it – all is not lost. The Home Office will continue to accept applications from individuals with ‘reasonable grounds’ for having missed the EUSS cut-off point. In this blog, we explore what might constitute a ‘reasonable ground’ and consider the legal implications for those who have fallen short of the deadline.

In February 2019, shortly after the launch of EU Settlement scheme for EU nationals to apply for their UK status, my colleagues and I visited one of our global media client’s offices to present on the new EU Settlement Scheme at a town hall meeting with all of their EU national employees. 

Gone are the days of computer gaming being viewed as a secluded activity; gaming is now a thoroughly social experience that attracts a global audience of millions and players can compete for large sums of money and celebrity. This burgeoning industry is largely in a virtual world and has developed in a blockchain, decentralised fashion. Often the UK government talks up the UK gaming industry and how keen the government is to support this sector, and there have been instances that show support, but when it comes to playing games competitively, law and regulations have not yet caught up.

The UK left the EU in January 2020, in accordance with the Withdrawal Agreement there has been a grace period in place since 1 January 2021 which ends on 30 June 2021. The basis of the grace period is that those EU citizens (and EEA and Swiss citizens) who were residents in the UK on or before 31 December 2020 have until 30 June 2021 to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.