UK Immigration News

Rob Whiteman, the head of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has said that he thinks that the UK Border Agency's (UKBA) system of checks on UK employers who register to sponsor overseas workers for UK visas is working well.

Mr Whiteman was appearing before the Home Affairs Committee of the UK's House of Commons on 18th December 2012. Mr Whiteman is obliged to appear before the committee four times a year to answer MPs' questions.

Rob Whiteman, the head of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) promised to return passports to international students in time for them to fly home for Christmas.

Mr Whiteman was appearing before the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons on 18th December 2012 when he made the pledge. The Committee chairman, Keith Vaz MP, raised the issue.

We would like to remind you that the UK's sponsorship licence system for has now been in place for over four years. This is the time that a UKBA sponsorship licence lasts so organisations that registered in 2008 and 2009 will soon be required to renew their licences, if they have not had to do so already.

A failure to re-apply will lead to a revocation of your company's right to employ workers from overseas. It will also result in any workers you currently have working with your company on Tier 2 visas losing their right to reside in the UK.

The UK's immigration authority has been criticised for detaining some asylum seekers who should be allowed to remain in the community and for keeping some people in detention for too long.

A joint report by the UK's chief inspector of immigration, John Vine, and the UK's chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, found that on 31st March 2012, there were 42 detainees in UK short-term holding facilities and immigration removal centres who had been detained for over two years.

Ed Miliband, the leader of the UK's Labour opposition gave a speech on 14th December 2012 in which he said that the last Labour government had made mistakes in its immigration policy when it was in power between 1997 and 2010. During that time, it is believed that four to five million people from overseas came to live in the UK. Critics of Labour allege that the government had an 'open-door immigration policy' which allowed mass immigration to continue unchecked.

The UK's Home Secretary, Theresa May, gave a speech at the Policy Exchange think tank in central London on 12th December 2012 in which she gave a summary of the progress that the UK's Coalition government has made in cutting immigration since it came to power in 2010 and also laid out the government's plans up until the next election in 2015.