UK Immigration News

What was once true of the Irish when settling in the US, and working for reservation wages, seems to have done a full circle with Eastern Europeans doing the same now in Ireland

Irish employers are making the most of gaining competitiveness, business development and employing for the future. A country that had in the past been ruthless to its customer base, is now giving consumers joy at the checkout.

One reason for the booming Irish economy is because of the immigrant workforce Ireland has developed over the past years.

Overseas IT specialists migrating to the UK will most likely to be awarded the highest status in the UK Home Office's points-based immigration system.

The points ranking system for immigrants wishing to live and work in the UK, will categorise migrants in accordance to their skills and abilities. Most IT specialists wanting to immigrate will score highly in the new system of weightings and trade-offs.

Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister in charge of immigration, will unveil proposals to create a new regional director's job for Scotland.

Scotland will have its own regional director for immigration and the new post will deal specifically with the improved treatment of immigrants and refugees.

A separate inspection and complaints service will also be set up, but the main task will be to deal with asylum seekers and refugees seeking to immigrate to Scotland.

The UK government flag ship for job skills training New Deal, is to be expanded to improve workers skills. The government wants to increase the skills scheme to be more flexible.

Gordon Brown from New Deal, told MP's that the UK economy by the year 2020 will have 14 million skilled jobs in the country.

Currently there are 3.4 million unskilled positions of employment in the UK, and Brown believes the number of unskilled labour by 2020 could drop to only 300,000 positions.

The issue of clamping down on illegal immigration has been raised by one the UK's most senior police officers, Chris Fox outgoing president of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Different agencies have different objectives, and Fox believes that UK police forces should unify with government branches to make it even harder for illegal immigrants, and criminal elements to cross UK borders.

The British High Commission, Nigeria has announced that the lifting of the the temporary suspension of visa services for first time visitors aged 18-30 will take effect on Friday 17 March.

The restriction was called a temporary but necessary measure introduced in April 2005 owing to unprecedented levels of demand for UK visas in Nigeria.