Immigration news

America's House of Representatives has approved tough new immigration legislation on February 11, the BBC reports.

If the bill ever becomes law the following changes will occur:

Processing times for work permits have not changed much over the last month. A work permit application in the UK takes up to 5 working days.

Applicants under the Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP) can expect to wait the longest, maybe even as long as 26 weeks.

If you are in the UK already on a work permit or under HSMP, you will probably also have to submit a Leave to Remain application which could take up to 13 more weeks to process.

It is likely that the Home Office fees for a number of immigration applications will go up from April 2005. This represents a huge increase in the fees charged by the Government for most types of immigration applications. The premium service fees for applications dealt with on the same day has doubled. The postal service fees in some cases have more than doubled.

Australia will not make any changes to Working Holidaymaker arrangements for British nationals, despite changes announced February 9 to the UK working holidaymaker program.

Those wishing to gain entry under the UK's Working Holidaymakers' Scheme (WHS) must come under amended rules as of February 8 following changes brought in under the British Government's five-year immigration and asylum strategy announced on Monday.

Following the announcement of future plans for the UK immigration system, the British Government has announced that foreign students will have to pay more for visa services, the BBC reports.

The UK's Minister for Immigration Des Browne announced yesterday that, from April, fees for non-EU students needing to extend visas to finish courses will rise from GBP 155 to GBP 250 for postal service and from GBP 250 to GBP 500 for premium "in person" service. At the same time the postal rate for non-student visas will rise to GBP 335.