Immigration newsletter 3 January 2013

We remind you again that if you are in the UK on a long term visa and looking to stay longer it is still possible in many cases to make a same day application at UKBA.  We can help with this. Call the London office on 0344 991 9222 for further details.

Many UK employers are finding that there Tier 2 Sponsorship Licence is coming up for renewal. We can also help with this.

Canada launched the new Canadian Federal Skilled Trades Program or FSTP on 2 January 2013.

The FSTP allows skilled tradespeople to apply for Canadian permanent resident status if they have a job offer in Canada, speak adequate English and have two years’ experience in a skilled trade. 3,000 applications will be accepted in the first year.

Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney said the FSTP would help address serious labour shortages in some parts of Canada.

Australia’s population grew by 1.6% or 359,600 people in the year to the end of June 2012. 58% of that rise was caused by immigration. The population reached 22.7m in July, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Last year, the Australian population grew by only 1.14%. This coincided with a period when levels of immigration were lower than normal. In 2009, the Australian government curbed immigration in response to the global economic slowdown.

Now that the immigration rate has gone up, Australian population growth is outstripping that in other developed countries. Canada experienced a 1% growth in population over the same period. The US population rose by 0.9%, the UK’s by 0.6% and France’s by 0.5%.

President Obama has told Latino pressure groups that he will do everything he can to reform the US's immigration system in 2013. But first, he has asked for their help in helping to pull the US back from the brink of the 'fiscal cliff'.

The president held a conference call with the leaders of many Hispanic American pressure groups on 11th December in which he assured them that he would put the weight of the White House behind a campaign to reform immigration in 2013. One person who was involved in the conference was Brent Wilkes, the executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Mr Wilkes said 'as soon as we get the fiscal cliff issues taken care of, he's committed to doing it (that is immigration reform)'.

A Labour member of the UK’s House of Lords has said that the government should open up a ‘democratic debate’ around immigration.

Lord Glasman is a professor of politics at London Metropolitan University which was in the news earlier this year when its Highly Trusted Sponsor status, which allowed it to sponsor students from outside the European Economic Area for Tier 4 student visas was revoked. Glasman was speaking at a debate on London’s Growing Diversity at the London Conference on Tuesday 27th November 2012. The London Conference is an annual event organised by the left of centre think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research.

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