UK Immigration News

The UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, has announced a major change to the UK student immigration system.

Mrs May announced a series of changes to the Tier 4 student visa system which, she said, would allow Britain to continue to attract the brightest and best students while stopping bogus students from obtaining Tier 4 student visas. She said that there would be steps taken to wipe out abuse but also encouragements to genuine students.

The UK's chief inspector of immigration has told a UK parliamentary committee that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) provides 'shockingly poor' customer service. In his evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, he also directly contradicted evidence given to a parliamentary committee by the former UKBA head, Lin Homer.

While appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee on 4th December 2012, John Vine, the UK's chief selector of immigration confirmed that only 104 of 764 asylum seekers who were refused leave to remain in the UK between April 2011 and February 2012 were removed from the country.

Steve McCabe MP asked Mr Vine whether the UKBA had given Mr Vine any explanation for this failure.

Mr Vine said that 'there wasn't any explanation as such' but said that he thought that the organisation was organised in 'silos'

The latest UK census, completed in 2011, has revealed great changes in the ethnic and religious composition of the UK population.

The number of foreign-born people living in England and Wales rose by about two thirds (63%) in the decade to 2011. There were 2.9m more people who were born overseas in the UK in 2011 than there were in 2001, according to the census. The country from which the most people came was India, followed by Poland, then Pakistan, Ireland and Germany.

Changes to the UK's rules for family migrants are splitting families apart and creating a 'two-tier system; those who are rich enough to live with whom they choose and those deemed to be too poor to live with somebody from abroad,' as Don Flynn of the Migrants' Rights Network put it.

From 1st December 2012, anyone granted permission to stay in the UK for over six months must apply for a biometric residence permit. These new requirements will, the UKBA says, enable 'employers and other bodies to check the immigration status and entitlements of foreign nationals.'