Leading industrialist says UK immigration regime is killing UK engineering

Sir James Dyson, the founder of the Dyson technology company, best known for its vacuum cleaners, has slammed the UK's Coalition government for its immigration policy which, he says, is putting British jobs at risk.


Sir James, who is thought to be worth £3bn, wrote an opinion piece for The Financial Times entitled 'Stop kicking out bright foreigners, or put British jobs at risk. He says that in 2014, there will be 61,000 engineering positions in the UK that will go unfilled and says that, if companies can't find the engineers in the UK, they will be forced to go elsewhere, thus costing British jobs.


It seems from what he has said that Sir James is likely to be in favour of immigration schemes similar to those that have since closed for new applicants such as

• The Tier 1 (General) visa that allowed skilled professionals to work freely in the UK without a sponsor and
• The Tier 1 (Post Study Work) visa which allowed students to work in the UK for two years after graduation.

 

 

Tier 2 scheme makes it 'difficult to sponsor workers'

Sir James says that his company intends to recruit 3,000 engineers to work at his headquarters in Wiltshire in 2014 but says 'I have no idea where these engineers are going to come from'. He says 'Last year we had 120 engineering positions unfilled. It holds us back and it holds exports back'.

 

 

Financial incentives

In the longer term, Sir James says that the UK must change the education system to produce more engineers. He suggests that the UK should 'offer financial incentives to encourage the brightest students towards areas of vital national interest'.


But, in the shorter term, the UK must allow foreign engineering graduates who train at British universities to stay in the country to work. He says that, instead, 'we kick them out, dispatching newly trained engineers to foreign shores. Our experts are training the competition'.


Sir James names (former) immigration minister Mark Harper as being partly to blame for the situation. He says 'Immigration Minister Mark Harper will have you believe that this (refusing foreign engineering students permission to stay in the UK) is in the national interest. It is not. We all lose out when we deprive our businesses of the best talent'.

 

 

'Let's use their brains'

Sir James says that foreign students want to stay in the UK. He says they 'are clearly anglophiles and they are clearly bright. So let us use their brains to our advantage.


The reason these engineers go home is because we do everything we can to make them unwelcome'.


Sir James adds that it is also extremely difficult for UK employers who face 'high fees and an avalanche of paperwork'. He says 'these are the world's most promising engineers. We ought to be encouraging them to stay, not waving them goodbye'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

 

Canadian Immigration to abolish Immigrant Investor Program

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has announced that the Immigrant Investor Program (IIP) and the Federal Entrepreneur Program (FEP) will be terminated. The two programs were once Canada's main investor and entrepreneur programs but both had been suspended for some time.


In a statement, CIC said that the move will 'eliminate a large and longstanding backlog of applications, and pave the way for new pilot programs that will actually meet Canada's labour market and economic needs'.


The IIP has been suspended since July 2012. At the time that it was suspended, there were 25,000 applicants waiting for their applications to be determined. As most of these had applied to bring family with them, it is thought that some 75,000 people were waiting for Canadian permanent resident visas under the IIP.

 

 

Applications terminated

These applications will now be terminated and the application fees will be returned.
The IIP allowed wealthy foreign citizens worth more than CAN$1,600,000 (£885,000, US$1,455,000) to apply for Canadian permanent resident visas if they lent $800,000 ( (£443,000, US$733,000) to the Canadian government for three years.


The former immigration minister, Jason Kenney, told journalists in 2012 that the program 'undervalued the importance of Canadian citizenship and fails to ensure that new investors actively in the Canadian economy'

 

 

IIP scrapped

There were rumours in 2013 that CIC might keep the IIP in place but increase the size of the qualifying loan. These rumours have proved to be false.


In a statement, CIC said 'Research shows that immigrant investors pay less in taxes than other economic immigrants, are less likely to stay in Canada over the medium-to-long term and often lack the skills, including official language proficiency, to integrate as well as other immigrants from the same countries'.


The FEP was suspended in 2011. At that time, there was a backlog of 10,000 applications pending, which would have taken about eight years to clear. FEP applications will also be terminated and Government fees refunded.

 

 

'Administratively very burdensome and underwhelming in terms of results'

When he suspended the program, Mr Kenney said that it was 'administratively very burdensome and underwhelming in terms of the results'.


CIC says that it will 'replace these programs with more focused and effective pilot programs that will ensure that immigrants who come to Canada deliver meaningful benefits to our economy'.

 

 

Start-up visa

Canada has already established a new entrepreneur visa. On 1st April 2013, it launched the Start-Up visa which seeks to connect foreign entrepreneurs with Canadian venture capitalists.


If entrepreneurs can attract sufficient investment then, providing they meet Canada's general immigration criteria, they will receive permanent residence visas.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Canada. Please visit our Canadian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/canada.html

BBC finds 'systematic fraud' in UK's student immigration system

A BBC investigation into the UK's Tier 4 student visa system has found 'systematic immigration fraud'. An investigation for the Panorama documentary programme found immigration consultants offering forged documents for use in Tier 4 visa applications and offering to help students cheat in government approved exams.


Interviewed for the programme, the UK's Home Secretary, Theresa May, told reporter Richard Watson that the programme's findings were 'shocking and important' and said 'I want to do something about it'.
 

The UK issues about 200,000 student visas annually and also approves a further 100,000 visa extensions. In order to qualify for a Tier 4 visa, you must be able to prove that;

• You can communicate adequately in English. To prove this, you must take an English test in two parts. First, you must talk with an examiner, usually online, who will assess your English ability and then you must take a 200 question multiple choice exam.
• You have suitable academic qualifications. You will have to show certificates.
• You have sufficient funds to be able to support yourself in the UK. You will have to show bank statements
• A registered UK academic institution is prepared to sponsor your visa application.

 

 

Forged documents

The Panorama programme sent foreign students who were in the UK legally to pose as customers at the offices of several immigration consultancies. Consultants were filmed

• Offering to help applicants who could not speak English to pass the government's English test by;
  • Arranging for someone fluent in English to take the oral English test and
  • Providing all the answers to the multiple choice test
• Providing forged educational certificates
• Providing misleading bank statements and
• Arranging for educational institutions to provide a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) certificate to applicants who were not intending to study there.

The Panorama report followed several undercover reporters at two different immigration consultancies. The reporters visited the firms and asked for help obtaining Tier 4 visas. They explained that they needed Tier 4 visas but intended to work full time.


The reporters also made it clear that they did not have the correct paperwork. For a total of about £2,500 the bogus consultants produced the forged or misleading information required.

 

 

Hacking bank accounts

Consultants provided bogus educational qualifications and bank statements. One consultant boasted that he would hack into banks and steal the details of a person with a similar name to a Tier 4 applicant with a healthy bank balance and show this information to the Home Office.


The film then showed exams at two separate English language testing centres in London where undercover reporters posing as Tier 4 applicants arrived at the centre to take tests to prove their English language ability.


When they arrived, they registered their presence with the invigilators. Then, they were told to keep out of the way while other people, who were fluent in English, took the English tests for them.

 

 

Sponsorship licences suspended

The Home Office has since suspended all English language tests run by ETS, the world's biggest educational testing service and has also suspended the sponsorship licences of the two English language colleges involved.


The Home Secretary has said that the Home Office will investigate all the allegations made in the programme.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our website for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

UK PM clashes with his own party on immigration

The UK's House of Commons voted on the Coalition government's Immigration bill on Friday 31st January 2014. The bill was passed by the Commons and will now proceed to the House of Lords. By law, the Lords cannot legally prevent the passage of the bill, but they can delay it by introducing amendments and returning it for further votes in the Common.


The Home Secretary, Theresa May, introduced an amendment to the bill which was passed by the Commons by 297 votes to 34. This amendment will, if confirmed by the House of Lords, allow the UK to strip naturalised British citizens of their citizenship when they are suspected of terrorism offences, even if this means that they will become stateless.


This amendment was labelled 'irresponsible and unjust' by the human rights group Liberty. And on the BBC political debate show Question Time, former Conservative Home Secretary Ken Clarke MP voiced concern about the amendment saying he would ask the Attorney General Dominic Grieve 'to satisfy me [that the amendment] was compatible with the rule of law'.

 

 

Raab's amendment

Parliamentary commentators believe that Mrs May introduced her amendment in order to try to stop a backbench rebellion in favour of another amendment introduced by Conservative backbencher Dominic Raab.


Mr Raab's amendment would have removed the right of foreign-born criminals to use EU human rights legislation to avoid deportation. Currently, many foreign-born criminals who have family in the UK go to court to oppose their deportation on the grounds that the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees all EU citizens the 'right to family life'.


Mrs May told the Commons that she opposed Mr Raab's amendment because, if the amendment was passed. This would make the Immigration Act 'incompatible' with EU law. One would, therefore, have expected Mr Cameron and his cabinet colleagues to vote against the amendment.

 

 

Front bench abstained on 'illegal' amendment

However, despite the fact that the government's own legal advisors had advised that the amendment would be illegal, Mr Cameron ordered his cabinet colleagues to abstain during the vote on Mr Raab's amendment.


Westminster commentators say that this was a tactical move to avoid a split within the Conservative Party but is rumoured that Mrs May was upset by the Prime Minister's intervention because she believes that it undermined her authority. As mentioned above Mrs May wanted her party to vote against the amendment.


When the vote was held, Mr Raab's amendment was defeated because Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs voted against it so will not become law.

 

 

Cameron increasingly alienated from right wing

But Westminster commentators say that the whole episode shows that Mr Cameron is becoming increasingly alienated from the right wing of his own party who are virulently opposed to the European Union and to immigration, which they see as being out of the UK's control because it is a member of the European Union.


The Shadow Immigration Minister, Labour's Yvette Cooper, accused Mr Cameron of being 'scared of his own backbenchers'. A spokesman for the anti-EU UK Independence Party said that Mr Cameron had 'lost the plot'.


Matthew Parris, a former Conservative MP and political commentator said that there was now a 'fifth column' of Conservative backbenchers which hates the EU and wants to destroy David Cameron because they do not trust him to allow a referendum on the UK's membership of the Union.

 

 

Religious fanaticism

Mr Parris wrote 'We are dealing here with a quasi-religious fanaticism…they will not rest until he's gone.' The bill will now go to the House of Lords where the Lords will debate the bill and, no doubt, propose various amendments to it.
 

The current main clauses in the bill provide

• Many immigrants will have to pay a £200 per year levy to be able to use the UK's National Health Service
• Landlords will be required to check the immigration status of anyone they intend to let a property to to ensure that the prospective tenant has the right to reside in the UK
• Banks will be required to check new customers' immigration status to ensure that they are in the UK legally before allowing them to open a bank account
• The grounds for appeal against an order for deportation will be reduced from 17 to four
• Foreign criminals will be deported before their appeal against deportation is heard. They will then be allowed to pursue their appeal from their home country and will be readmitted if their appeal is successful.

Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

London tech firms call for UK immigration reform

A UK group which lobbies on behalf of technology start-up companies has called for a reform to the UK's employment-based immigration system to allow firms in the sector to recruit the best talent.


Russ Shaw of Tech London Advocates told Computer Weekly magazine 'We'd love to have a lot more home-grown talent but we need to supplement that with global talent to build and grow these businesses. We need to adjust the immigration policies and many other things'.


Mr Shaw told Computer Weekly that he had already held meetings with the Home Office and said that he was hopeful that some changes would be introduced within the next year. He said that there were also other problems that would not be addressed so quickly.

 

 

Silicon Roundabout

Mr Shaw said that it is London's success as a centre for tech start-ups, particularly in East London in the Silicon Roundabout district around Old Street, that has created the demand for international talent.


In December 2013, the UK's Prime Minister David Cameron announced a new 'tech visa' which will allow 'exceptionally talented' IT workers to apply for UK visas. There is no news yet about how many of these visas will be available but it is unlikely that it will be more than 300-400 per year.


The 'tech visa' announced by David Cameron last year is a welcome innovation but it will not come close to closing the skills gap. IT is one of the UK's real success stories. There are 90,000 IT firms and over 500,000 people working in the industry in London alone.

 

 

Tech visa 'will not undo the damage'

'Many of these firms are crying out for workers but they can't get them. Three or four hundred more workers will not solve that problem. In the past, many IT workers came to the UK from countries such as India, Australia and New Zealand.


'But Mr Cameron's government closed the Tier 1 (General) and Tier 1 (Post Study Work) visa streams. Those workers now find it much more difficult to work in the UK. The tech visa will not undo that damage'.


Mr Cameron's government also introduced an annual cap of 20,700 on the number of Tier 2 (General) skilled worker visas that can be issued annually. This cap has never been reached so the government would no doubt argue that the imposition of the cap has not damaged the industry.

 

 

Changes are harming smaller firms

However, Eric van der Kleij, the boss of the L39 investment tech investment company has indicated to Computer Weekly magazine that the cap is damaging smaller firms because there is evidence that, since the introduction of the cap, the UK's Home Office has made it considerably more difficult to jump through all the hoops in order to get a Tier 2 (General) visa.


Mr van der Kleij said that it is understandable that the UK should have strict immigration controls but says that the effect of the current complex visa rules is to skew the system in favour of richer, larger companies.


This is because it takes a great deal of work to complete a UK visa application. Sanwar Ali said 'The UK Visa application is only part of the process. You need to have a sponsorship licence, and allocate a certificate of sponsorship and quite likely advertise as well. It is very bureaucratic and time consuming'.

 

 

Small firms unable to afford visa application process

All this means that small start-up tech firms are often unable to afford the expense of applying for visas for much needed staff. Mr van der Kleij told Computer Weekly that he believes that the UK government should set up a panel of experts to advise tech firms on how to employ workers from outside the European Union.


He suggested that providing these firms with subsidised immigration advice would help them compete. 'You should spend the money on helping younger companies use the system' he said.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

US Republicans release 'Standards for Immigration Reform'

On January 30th 2014, senior Republicans in Washington released a one-page document 'Standards for Immigration Reform' which sets out the principles behind their efforts to pass immigration reform in the House of Representatives (known as 'The House') in the coming months.


The statement was launched by the 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and the Speaker of the House John Boehner, two senior Republicans who favour immigration reform. It lays out the principles behind immigration reform for House Republicans and outlines laws that they would like to see passed.
 

The document does not necessarily have the support of all Republicans in the House but they would not have been released by Mr Boehner unless he believed that he could unite his party behind the principles contained in the document. The document seems to support legislation which would:

• Increase border security and biometric testing for those entering the US
• Reform the US legal immigration system to favour employment-based immigration over family migration. The Green Card Lottery would also be scrapped
• Allow illegal immigrants who came to the US as children with their parents to apply for citizenship if they graduate from university or serve in the military
• Allow other illegal immigrants (with no criminal records) to 'live legally and without fear' in the US. In essence, this seems to propose some kind of legal residence status that falls short of citizenship. People in this category would not have access to government benefits.

 

 

Initial reaction mixed

Initial reaction to the document suggests that right-wing 'Tea Party' Republicans oppose the plan because it is too soft on illegal immigration while Democrats say the plans do not go far enough. It seems that Congress may well be unable to agree on the Republican plans.


This would not be surprising. Since 2009, there has been little agreement between Republicans and Democrats on any subject. The divide between the parties has been particularly wide on immigration. Both parties say they want to reform the US's immigration system which they agree is 'broken' but they have been poles apart on what should be done about it.


The division is widest in the House of Representatives where many Republicans are now sympathetic to the radical right-wing movement The Tea Party. The Tea Party opposes 'big government'. It is a grass roots movement and has no manifesto but it is broadly, anti-tax, anti-'socialism' and anti-immigration.

 

 

Tea Party wants illegal immigrants to leave

Tea Party-backed Republicans are particularly opposed to illegal immigration. There are thought to be 11.5m illegal immigrants living in the US and the Tea Party would, on the whole, like to see them all leave.


However, even the most ardent opponents of immigration accept that it would be impossible to expel so many people. So, instead, they favour policies that would encourage 'self-deportation'. That is, they would like to make it so difficult to live in the US as an illegal resident that illegal residents would decide to leave voluntarily.
 

This became yet another point of opposition between Republicans and Democrats at the 2012 election. The Republican nominee Mitt Romney espoused 'self-deportation' policies while President Obama campaigned promising to create 'a pathway to citizenship' for many of the illegal immigrants in the US. To qualify, illegal residents would have to:

• Pay a fine for entering the country illegally
• Learn English if necessary
• Pay a sum to compensate the US for the tax not paid while they were working illegally
• Wait in line for at least 13 years.

 

 

Romney caught between rock and hard place

Mr Romney had to promise 'self-deportation' to win the support of Tea Party sympathisers but, Republican strategists believe, in doing so, he may well have lost the election.


This is because 'self-deportation' policies are unpopular with most Americans and particularly with Hispanic voters. Hispanic voters voted overwhelmingly for President Obama (78% voted for him against a mere 21% who voted for Mr Romney).


This is because some 80% of illegal residents are ethnically Hispanic and many, perhaps most, US citizens of Hispanic descent know at least one illegal immigrant. If 50% of Hispanics had voted for Mr Romney, he would have won.

 

 

Hispanics are fastest growing minority

To make matters worse for the Republicans, Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the US. Some Republican strategists believe that the Republicans must now make a choice between pandering to the anti-immigrant Tea Party and seeing a Republican president in the White House ever again.


Republicans in the House therefore are in a difficult position, needing to find a way to reach out to Hispanic voters while maintaining the support of their Tea Party supporters on the right. Thus, MR Boehner and Mr Ryan attempted to appeal to Tea Party sentiments.


In the preamble to the statement it says 'The overriding purpose of our immigration system is to promote and further America's national interests and that is not the case today'.

 

 

'Step-by-step, common sense approach'

The statement says, 'our immigration system must be solved through a step-by-step, common-sense approach that starts with securing our country's borders, enforcing our laws, and implementing robust enforcement measures'.


The call for a 'step-by-step' approach indicates that Republicans in the House will not support a comprehensive reform bill which has already been passed by the Senate. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act was passed by the Senate in June 2013.


It would:

• Increase in border security spending of $4.5bn
• Create a 'pathway to citizenship' for illegal immigrants with clean criminal records. To qualify, immigrants would have to learn English, pay a fine and back taxes on illegal earnings
• Allow foreign students with Masters degrees and PhDs from US universities to apply for US permanent resident visas ('green cards')
• Allow many more foreign workers with 'specialty knowledge' to apply for H-1B temporary work. The existing current annual cap of 65,000 could rise to 180,000. A cap of 20,000 for those with higher degrees would be scrapped
• Require US employers to check the immigration status of all workers against the online E-Verify system before employing them.

 

 

Obama 'will work with Republicans'

President Obama has said that he is willing to work with the House on a series of single issue bills.


The leader of the Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi, told journalists that Democrats will reject any bill that does not establish a pathway to citizenship for all illegal immigrants whether they came to the US as adults or children.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United States. Please visit our USA page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/usa.html

UKs Lib Dems to woo EU immigrants for Euro elections

A senior member of the Liberal Democratic Party, the UK's third biggest political party, has urged Liberal Democrat activists to 'keep engaging' with eastern European communities in the UK to help it in the European elections this May.


The EU elections will decide which parties hold the UK's 73 seats in the European Parliament. EU citizens living in the UK will have the right to vote in the elections.


Issan Ghazni is the chairman of the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats. He will also stand as a candidate for the party in the East Midlands at the European elections. He wrote an article on the party's LibDemVoice website in which he said that the party must 'get smarter about our strategy'.

 

 

Domesday predictions

Mr Ghazni notes that there are 'Domesday predictions in the media that Liberal Democrats are set to lose all our MEPs to UKIP'.


Currently, the Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron holds 26 seats. UKIP and the UK's official opposition, the Labour Party both hold 13 seats and the Liberal Democrats hold 11 seats.


The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a right-wing party which calls for the UK to leave the European Union and for a reduction in immigration. Much of UKIP's support is probably 'a protest vote' against the UK's Coalition government which consists of the Conservatives of Prime Minister David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats.

 

 

UKIP's anti-immigration support

A significant proportion of UKIP's support seems to depend on its anti-immigration stance. Polls show that about 75% of the UK population believes that there is too much immigration into the UK. UKIP argues that the UK should leave the EU and that If it did so, citizens of the EU would no longer be able to easily live and work in the UK.


Polls show that UKIP is likely to come second to the Labour Party in the European elections, beating Mr Cameron's Conservatives into third place and the Liberal Democrats into a distant fourth.


Mr Ghazni dismisses the polls as 'wide of the mark' but says that the Liberal Democrats must work hard to mobilise the pro-European vote. He says that 'millions of jobs for British citizens depend on trade with Europe' as do 'jobs in industries like Lincolnshire farms who struggle to hire British-born workers'.

 

 

'In Europe, In Work'

The Liberal Democrats' campaign slogan is 'In Europe, In Work'. Mr Ghazni says that this is 'a powerful statement about where we stand' but says that it needs to be 'supplemented by targeted messaging'.


He says that, the Liberal Democrats, the most pro-European of the main parties in the UK, should try to attract support from the many eastern Europeans who have come to the UK to live and work since their countries joined the EU in 2004.


He says 'As a Euro candidate in the East Midlands I am particularly keen to pay attention to the large number of Eastern European workers. They have the right vote for their MEP but many are unsure whether they can so have not joined the electoral roll'.

 

 

Boston

He says that he recently visited Boston, a small market town in the rural county of Lincolnshire. The town is home to a very large eastern European population. He says 'I recently visited five Eastern European coffee shops [in Boston] to talk with migrant workers.


As soon as they heard the Lib Dems' pro-Europe message of supporting the free movement of goods and labour they were eager to vote for us'.


'However many Eastern Europeans are unaware they had a vote. We need to spread the news that they can vote so long as they register' Mr Ghazni says.

 

 

Immigration changing UK society

Mr Ghazni's article provides valuable information on the extent to which immigration has changed and will continue to change UK society.


He says 'Eastern Europeans will become more established in future decades. Securing their support today, at a time when they are repelled by the anti-immigration climate, will serve us well in future elections. And it may just take us over the winning post in May.'


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html