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Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has announced an analysis of the Australian student visa program and possible links to the sex industry. It has been alleged that some students on Australian student visas end up working in the sex industry. If there is any evidence of human trafficking this will be referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
Immigration Minister Bowen had the following to say:
UK Immigration has published a list of financial institutions that do not provide financial statements suitable for the purposes of applying for a Tier 4 student visa. These financial institutions are all in India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
The new UK immigration requirement that overseas spouses must be at least 21 years old has recently been declared unlawful by the UK High Court.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron had said that the new rule would reduce the number of forced marriages.
Lord Wilson in the Supreme Court judgment had the following to say:
"I would acknowledge that the change in rules is rationally connected to the objective of deterring forced marriages."
"But the number of forced marriages which it deters is highly debatable.
If you are one of the lucky winners the US Green Card Lottery is an easy way for you and your family to gain US permanent residence.
You only have until 5 November 2011 to apply for the Green Card Lottery. Other US immigration routes can be difficult. If you wish to emigrate to the USA on the basis of employment, you will probably need to have a high level job offer and the employer may also need to show that there is no one else locally who can fill the vacancy. Family based immigration is also a popular immigration route for the US.
There will be further changes to the UK shortage occupation list. This will make it more difficult for some people to work in the UK under the Tier 2 visa skilled immigration route.
The UK Government has accepts changes suggested by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to reduce the number of available jobs for migrants. The number of jobs in the UK under the shortage occupation list will be reduced from 230,000 to 190,000. In practice only a relatively small percentage, anyway, of these jobs would have been filled by skilled immigrants.
Under the popular Canadian immigration skilled worker category there are only a maximum of 10,000 visas a year available from 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012 and only twenty nine eligible occupations. It is already the case that the visa cap has been reached for the following two occupations: Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management and professional nurses. You should also note that there are only 500 federal skilled worker visas available per occupation.