Immigration news

Amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the UK, government updates on Tier 2 visa Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) availability have been intermittent throughout 2020. However, allocation numbers were updated on 11 November 2020 having not been published since July. 

 

In yet another blow to Donald Trump’s attempts to scrap the DACA US immigration program, a New York judge has ruled that Chad Wolf, the acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief, was appointed unlawfully.  

The ruling means that his suspension of the DACA program is invalid because he did not have the authority to stop the scheme.

Free movement between the EU and the UK will officially end on 31 December 2020 as the UK Immigration Act received Royal Assent and was signed into law on 11 November. According to a government press release, the signing of the act into law means that ‘it delivers on a manifesto commitment to restore faith in the UK immigration system.’

 

The US citizenship test has been updated and will now feature more questions than ever before. Experts claim that the test will be ‘harder for immigrants’ and will slow down the number of tests that can be held each day. The new-look test is set to launch on December 1, 2020.

 

Nearly 245 family, employment and diversity-based US visa applicants have filed a further lawsuit against outgoing President, Donald Trump’s, US visa ban. The lawsuit demands immediate relief from the Trump proclamation, issued on June 22, which bans US entry for skilled workers on H1B, L1 and J1 visas.

 

According to data released by the US Department of State (DoS), the number of F1 visas issued to Indian students up to September 2020 had slumped by 64% amid the coronavirus pandemic. With US visa processing services temporarily suspended, Indian students were granted just 15,000 visas between October 2019 and September 2020.