Immigration news

The Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Chris Alexander has announced a change to the rules for citizenship applications. Anyone who fails to attend a citizenship test or interview without providing good cause will have their application terminated. Mr Alexander says that this will speed up citizenship decisions for those that do attend.

Mr Alexander issued a ministerial statement on Thursday 5th September 2013. He said 'The application process has, for too long, been bogged down by persons who unnecessarily delay the process for everyone else by not taking the process seriously'.

Tony Abbott, the leader of the right wing Coalition, has been elected as the new prime minister of Australia. The Coalition had a major victory over the Australian Labor Party at the federal election held on 7th September 2013.

The Coalition has 88 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. However, it will not have an outright majority in the Senate where it will have to win support from independents to achieve a majority.

John Vine, the UK's chief independent inspector of borders and immigration, has released a report which criticises the UK's Home Office for the quality and promptness of its decision making on Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visas. The report states that the Home Office did not keep adequate records, made decisions based on flawed evidence and allowed a backlog of nearly 10,000 cases to build up in 2012.

The UK's business minister Vince Cable has said that he will urge the Home Secretary Theresa May, who is responsible for the UK's immigration regime, to drop a plan to make some applicants for UK visas to pay 'security bonds' of up to £3,000 before receiving a visa. Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on 11th September 2013 that the bonds would provoke 'outrage' in countries where some nationals would be required to pay the bond.

The UK's immigration minister Mark Harper has announced that he intends to take steps to 'slow the path to settlement for refugees'. The announcement came in a written ministerial statement released in the House of Commons on 6th September 2013.

Mr Harper has also announced 'changes to the way we handle settlement applications for refugees who have committed crimes' and a new power to 'curtail leave for persistent or serious offenders'.

The UK immigration minister, Mark Harper, has announced a range of changes to the Immigration Rules which should come into force on 1st October 2013. Among the main changes is a decision to allow some 'locally engaged staff in Afghanistan' (including interpreters) to relocate to the UK. It is not clear how many staff will be able to settle in the UK.