UK Immigration News

The UK's chief inspector of immigration, John Vine, has found yet another backlog at the UK Border Agency (UKBA). Mr Vine published his new report into the UKBA's systems for dealing with marriage applications on 24th January 2013. Asked whether he thought the UKBA's performance had been satisfactory, Mr Vine said that he would have preferred not to have found so many backlogs.

In what may be seen as a sign of the times, it has emerged that gangs of 'people smugglers' are now doing business smuggling illegal aliens out of the UK.

The UK is one of the top destinations for illegal immigrants. Indeed, the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais in northern France was opened by the International Red Cross in 1999 to help care for the many people who were waiting near Calais with the intention of entering the UK illegally much of the time with the help of people smugglers. Most of the migrants were from Asia and did not have permission to be in the EU.

On December 13th 2012, The UK Border Agency (UKBA) announced a change to the rules affecting the eligibility of those with criminal convictions and those who owe money to HMRC to become UK citizens. The UKBA now has tougher rules for assessing who meets the 'good character' requirement for naturalisation. There is no actual definition of 'good character' in law but the new rules say that anyone who has served a lengthy prison sentence will now be considered not to be of good character for the rest of their life.

The Romanian ambassador to the UK, Ion Jinga, has hit out at UK press speculation that tens of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians will come to work in the UK in 2014 once EU law allows them to do so.

A new poll conducted by polling company Ipsos Mori for the think tank British Future shows that immigration is regarded by many Britons as a potential source of local and national tension. British Future was established in 2012 by Sunder Katwala, a British Asian who is a former General Secretary of the left-wing think tank The Fabian Society. Its stated aim is to 'to involve people in an open conversation, which addresses people's hopes and fears about identity and integration, migration and opportunity'.

The UK's Prime Minister David Cameron has said that it is impossible to know how many immigrants will come to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria next year when transitional immigration controls as allowed under EU law ends.