Immigration news

The UK's Home Secretary, Theresa May, has announced that UK immigration will launch a pilot scheme in November which will test the effectiveness of making foreigners from 'high risk countries' pay £3,000 security bonds to prevent them from overstaying their UK visitor visas.

Mrs May, said that the pilot will target citizens from six countries; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana. The countries have been chosen because many citizens from those countries have been found to overstay their temporary UK visas and remain in the UK illegally.

Australian industry bodies have criticised the Australian government for its decision to impose hefty new visa fees from 1st July 2013. They say that the new fees are unfair and may damage the Australian education and tourism industries. The government announced in 2011 that it intended to introduce new visa charges to try to raise $613m over four years but the level of the new fees was not revealed until 14th June 2013.

Among the changes are

Immigration moved centre stage in Washington last week as Congress debated the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act 2013 ('the bill'). This bill will, if it becomes law, comprehensively reform the US immigration system.

There was good news for supporters of reform when it emerged that the bill should pass the upper house of Congress, The Senate, by 70 votes to 30 after senators reached a deal on border security.

Australia is world-famous for its high standard of living. It is known as 'the lucky country' and was one of the few developed countries to survive the global economic slowdown which began in 2007 largely unscathed. If you would like to go and live there, we can help.

Australia accepts about 200,000 new permanent residents annually through its permanent migration programme and also welcomes about 100,000 skilled foreign workers each year as temporary workers under the '457' temporary work visa.

UK Immigration has become more difficult in recent years. Each change to the immigration rules brings in tougher immigration requirements. The government has also closed several categories of visa; The Tier 1 (General) visa which allowed high value migrants to live and work in the UK was closed to almost everyone from 5 April 2011.

While the Tier 1 (General) visa and several other Tier 1 visa categories have closed to new applicants, if you are already in the UK with a Tier 1 visa, you are in a fortunate position because you could well be able to extend your stay and we at workpermit.com can help you do it.

In June 2013, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued its International Migration Outlook report for 2013. The report contains summaries of changes in immigration in the 34 member countries of the OECD including the US. The US is not only the most populous country in the OECD, it is also the one that is home to the greatest immigrant population.