Immigration news

On 16 October 2014 the Government announced a number of important changes to the UK visa system. Some of these changes have already taken place. Further changes will follow.

From 6 November 2014 immigration officers have had greater powers to refuse Tier 2 visa applications if they believe that it is not a genuine role. Also if immigration officers believe that the migrant worker does not have the necessary qualifications to do the job a Tier 2 visa can be refused.

The Canadian Parent and Grandparent (PGP) sponsorship program is likely to reopen for new applicants in January 2015.

The Program was reintroduced in January 2014 after being put on hold since 2011. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) placed a temporary hold on new applications in 2011. This was to enable Canada immigration to concentrate on dealing with the large backlog of immigration cases. In 2014 when the sponsorship program reopened Canada immigration decided to introduce an annual quota of 5000 visas.

The British government has announced recently a plan to roll out the Super Priority Visa Service to a number of new countries, beginning in April next year.

The service is currently only available to business travellers applying for visit visas from India and China, and offers a visa decision within 24 hours. The scheme currently receives around 150 applications per month.

The countries which are to be added to the service are:

President Obama recently announced some visa changes last week which will lead to longer term visas being issued to Chinese citizens. Both US and Chinese citizens should benefit. Chinese citizens are likely to be granted longer term visas for the US. Similarly, US citizens are likely to be granted longer term visas for China.

The changes agreed during Obama's recent visit to China apply to student and visitor visas. They will allow for longer-term visas for students, tourists and business visitors, reducing the need to extend visas in future.

The Canada Border Services Agency has pledged that it will continue to crack down on immigration fraud, following concerns that migrants are being ripped-off by unscrupulous consultants.

There have been a number of cases recently of immigration consultants, based in Canada, who are charging foreign migrants huge amounts of money for work in Canada; only to find that the job in Canada does not exist.

UK politicians Boris Johnson (Conservative) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) have both recently called for the UK to adopt an immigration system similar to that of Australia. These statements are not entirely accurate. In reality the UK has had a points system for about six years.

The UK visa program was overhauled in 2008 by the previous Labour government. The UK then ended up with a points system similar in some respects to the Australian points system. This replaced the previous UK visa system which had over 80 different visa options.