Immigration news

Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has announced tougher immigration controls and a national security crackdown. His announcement comes in the wake of the Sydney hostage siege in December 2014, when an Iranian refugee, Man Haron Monis, walked into a cafe and held 18 hostages at gunpoint.

A report into the siege came to the conclusion that the decisions made by authorities regarding Monis enabling him to stay in Australia were reasonable. However, the report did recommend changes to immigration, citizenship and bail legislation.

Theresa May has revealed plans to overhaul the visa system for visitors to the UK. Mrs May wants to make it easier for business people and performing artists and certain others to access Britain.

She has outlined sweeping changes, set to be introduced in April, which will see the current 15 visa categories scrapped and in its place a new system from which visitors can choose from four visa types.

Officials say that the reforms will 'streamline' the application process and reduce the level of bureaucracy that visitors face when applying for a visa.

The Home Office has been dubbed a 'shambles' for failing to prosecute hundreds of immigrant fraudsters who con Britons into getting married, purely to obtain a UK visa. MPs have warned that the problem of sham marriages is becoming an increasing problem as overseas nationals look to circumvent tough UK visa laws.

Victims say that the Home Office is not doing enough to combat the problem. It's estimated that 1,000 cases of 'fake' marriages have been reported in the last 12 months alone.

Strict UK visa rules are the reason Indian students are boycotting Britain and heading to the US instead says Nirmala Sitharaman, India's Commerce and Industry Minister.

Sitharaman said: "There is a stigma attached to Britain that makes it an unattractive proposition for Indian students. They believe that it's exceptionally difficult to get a scholarship and have to pay three times the fee paid by a UK citizen. The majority of them prefer the US."

Millions of applications were expected to be lodged by illegal immigrants seeking legal immigration status in the US before 18 February 2015. However, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, issued a temporary court order on Monday 16 February stopping Obama's executive actions from going ahead. This would have benefited some illegal immigrants who came to the US as children (DACA) and illegal immigrant parents of US Citizens or permanent residents (DAPA).

New H-1B visa applications will be accepted from April 1st, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) have announced. With an annual quota of 85,000, employers wishing to bring in graduate level overseas nationals into the country are being urged to start preparations now to be ready to submit an H-1B visa application at the beginning of April 2015.