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The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has announced that it is to change its systems for dealing with visa applications from six European countries in January 2013.
The UKBA says that, between 7th January and 14th January 2013, the UKBA will change its systems for handling visa applications. In future, applications made at British Embassies and Consulates at these countries will be decided at the UKBA regional hub in Croydon, south London.
The countries are
DenmarkNorwayIcelandFinlandEstoniaSweden
Canada's new immigration programme for tradespeople opened for applications on 2nd January 2013. The scheme is intended to help skilled tradespeople such as plumbers, electricians and metalworkers to attain Canadian permanent resident status. It will do this by focussing on skills and trades qualifications and less on academic learning and linguistic ability than the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP); tradespeople typically did not gain enough points to come under FSWP.
People who have a legal right to remain in the UK are being wrongly told that they are obliged to leave by a private contractor funded by the main UK immigration control agency.
The Canadian Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, has told Canadian press agency Postmedia News that he does not intend to scrap the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program (IIP). The program was suspended in July 2012 with a backlog of cases that could take up to ten years to clear. There had been press speculation that Mr Kenney might cancel all the undecided applications and change the rules.
A Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir Andrei Geim, who immigrated to the UK from Russia in the early 90s, has warned that 'stupid' UK immigration policies will hinder UK scientific research.
A Labour member of the House of Lords has said that the government should open up a 'democratic debate' around immigration.