Immigration news

Foreign students currently living in the UK on Tier 4 visas are upset that they are stuck without their passports for extended periods of time while the UKBA processes their Tier 1 Post Study visa applications. This leaves them in a legal limbo, unsure of their right to stay in the UK, but unable to go back home. These are Tier 4 visa students who have recently graduated from a UK institution and wish to stay in the UK on another visa.

The UK Home Office announced immigration rule changes after a recent supreme court ruling threatened to render illegal thousands of decisions made under the UK's skilled migrant programme.The supreme court declared that recent changes to the UK Border Agency's points-based system of skilled migration, visitor's visas and family migration rules were unlawful because they had not been directly approved by parliament.

The number of immigrants applying for permanent residency in the Czech Republic has been sharply increasing, according to Vit Dvoracek, head of the foreign residency section of the Interior Ministry's asylum and migration policy department.In the second quarter of 2012, the Interior Ministry registered more than two times the number of permanent residency applications compared to the same period last year. From April till the end of June last year, 4,331 foreigners applied for permanent residency in the Czech Republic, while this year it was 9,166.

The US economy is being held back because the government has not increased the cap on H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, according to a new report from analysts at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.The study found that US employers want more H-1B visas to be made available so they can hire more foreign nationals for highly skilled, hard-to-fill jobs. The H-1B visa program is popular among US businesses wishing to employ graduate level foreign workers in specialty occupations.

Border officials at British airports are threatening to strike on 26 July, the day before the London Olympics begin, possibly creating massive delay at major airports like London Heathrow. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union voted for the 24-hour strike in a dispute over pay and job losses. However, even without the strike, London's Heathrow Airport has seen long lines and delays at passport and immigration checks over the past few months. The union has blamed these delays on government spending cuts.

A leading human rights organization has issued a report urging Greece to take "urgent action" to stop the "alarming" increase of attacks against Asian and African immigrants.The extensive report issued by US-based Human Rights Watch said xenophobic attacks, including stabbings and serious beatings, in Athens have increased over the past two years. They urged the Greek government to create a national strategy to combat race-related crime.