UK Visa/Passport News

Immigrant rights campaigners of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) have begun a legal case to find out how the UK Home Office algorithm used to filter UK visa applications actually works. The move has been taken in a bid to expose how artificial intelligence affects immigration policies. Supported by Foxglove, a new advocacy group promoting justice in the new technology sector, the JCWI wants to force the UK Home Office into revealing the [...]

The UK Home Office has launched a new wave of advertising in a bid to encourage more EU citizens that wish to live in the UK post-Brexit to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme. The new campaign, which is worth £1 million, builds on the £3.75 million campaign allocated for full supporting of the Scheme, last March. According to a press release of the UK government, the outdoor advertising in around 2,400 places across the UK will [...]

The UK’s new Innovator Visa has been called too limiting after only two applicants (out of a total of four applications) received the visa in the first three months of its launch. In contrast, the Start-up visa, which was introduced at the same time, received 32 applications in its first three months, out of which 23 were successful. The Innovator Visa is part of the changes which the UK government has made to its immigration rules in [...]

Two million non-UK EU nationals have applied to stay in the United Kingdom post-Brexit, under the EU Settlement Scheme. According to the Home Secretary Priti Patel, internal figures show that Home Office has admitted two million applications so far, despite that the EU Settlement Scheme statistics released on October 9 show that 1,860,200 applications have been received until the end of September 2019. While 231,500 applications were received during the testing phase, the rest of applications were [...]

Last week the UK government introduced the new UK two-year post-study work visa for foreign students graduating in the UK. In fact, the government is only reintroducing the post-study visa that existed until 2012, before the then-Home Secretary Theresa May, scrapped it, and introduced a four-month post-graduation visa. The reintroduced visa for foreigners graduating in the UK that want to work there or search for work has been updated including safeguarding in order to ensure that “only [...]

In the eve of Brexit, the United Kingdom government has decided to add a few extra skilled occupations to the shortage list, including architects, veterinarians, and web designers. The Immigration Minister Seema Kennedy announced the expansion of shortage of occupation list, which will give people coming to the UK to work in these industries priority in securing a Tier 2 work visa, over occupations not on the list. “Giving British based businesses the access to the brightest [...]

The United Kingdom Home Office Secretary, Priti Patel has tasked the Migration Advisory Committee to review the Australian immigration systems and other similar systems, in a bid to find update the current UK PBS. In a letter to Professor Alan Manning, the Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, Home Secretary, Priti Patel asks the MAC to report by January 2020 on a review of the Australian immigration system and similar systems in order to find the best [...]

The UK government has decided to introduce harder border controls in the event of a no-deal Brexit, applying a tougher UK criminality threshold for EEA citizens in order to keep out and deport those who commit crimes. According to a press release of the Uk government the changes will be introduced alongside a new European Temporary Leave to Remain for EEA and Swiss citizens and their close relatives. “Citizens of those states moving to the UK after [...]

The government of the United Kingdom has allocated £3 million in grant to fund charities and other voluntary organizations to help the UK nationals currently living in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway about the need to register or apply for residency post-Brexit. According to a statement published by the UK government portal, the government wants to support the over 1 million UK nationals that live in the EU and EFTA countries – focusing on those [...]

11 percent more Indian travelers have visited the United Kingdom from July 2018 to June 2019, compared to the same previous 12-month period. According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics latest quarterly report on Migration Statistics over 503,000 Indian passport holder were granted with visitor visas for the year ending June 2019. British High Commissioner to India, Dominic Asquith asserts that the new figures are good news for the relationship between the UK and India. He [...]