UK immigration changes [S. Worthen

I feel I should apologise. I didn't vote for the moneygrubbing bastards.

I'm sure you'll feel much better about when you know why they're raising the fees:

We will spend the funds raised by the fees on:

providing additional enforcement to ferret out illegal workers and the employers who exploit them
building new detention centres to securely hold those who are awaiting decisions on their asylum claims or who are waiting deportation following a failed application
helping employers check their employees' nationality status
running campaigns abroad to explain the UK's immigration rules
increasing the rate and number of illegal immigrants who are sent back to their home countries

Doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

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It makes me feel ashamed, frankly. It's all about pandering to Mail readers and knee-jerk responses to manufactured emergencies.

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Hrm, so making it more difficult to immigrate legally will reduce illegal immigration, eh?

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Very sensible, isn't it?

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*headdesk*

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What the fees actually will do, I suspect, is continue to increase the number of illegal immigrants because they can't afford to pay for the legal immigration process in the first place. God knows I don't have £575 extra to spend to make myself a citizen. We don't really have £268 either but at least that we can scrape together a bit more reasonably.

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Don't mind my sarcasm. You know it's not meant personally.

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I'm a)a Brit and b) a teacher. We get sarcasm.

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I know. But it's the internet. The internet is full of misunderstandings and I was hit by a bout of paranoia.

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Yeah, I understand - but worry not.

I get so angry about the xenophobia that is fast replacing government policy. We are a mongrel nation, fer crying out loud.

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Yikes! thanks for bringing this to my attention!

There are also changes to the fees charged for visa applications done outside the country. Looking at the official UK Visas site, those changes are defineitely going in. UK Visas item on it here.
I need to get a new LTR visa for my new Work Permit in the next couple months. The price difference between in country LTR and out of country LTE was big enough before that I was planning to check with the home office whether doing it as a LTE from the US would cause problems when I go to add up my years on WP/HSMP for ILR in another 4 yrs or so (have almost 1 yr of the 5 done at this point...) - Cos with a price difference as it was - that was £335 for LTR vs. £85 for LTE - which nearly pays for the airfare on a trip back to the states!

Now... after April 1, not so much so... £350 LTR vs. £200 LTE. (Work permit LTR is going up less than some other categories, provided one applies via the post of course...)

Bloody glad I hadn't already booked flights for an appointment *after* April Fool's Day and stuff based on the old prices working to my advantage

Time to figure out what I'm doing for certain... which might be "take a trip home REAL SOON" ;-)

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Well observed, and something I should have made clear. (For example, for anyone wandering by and seeing the student fees - if you apply from abroad to be a student in the UK, the rates are going up from £85 to £99, i.e. a whole lot less than if you apply from within the UK.)

That's a hard call - especially given how far in March we are already - and can you get an appointment in time? I imagine there's more of a rush than usual just now - but may be worth a try anyways.

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well usually there's not a problem getting an in person appointment in chicago. but yes, there may be a bit of a run on appointments at the mo!

the bigger issue is- if it turns out to make sense to do it, can I get the time off work at such short notice?

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Dear OWLFISH.....i need to know more about indefinate leave to remain....i was granted indefinate leave to enter last december from a home office in malaysia and now i'm in the uk. My passport will need to be renewed in the next two yrs and i want to know whether the home office will stamp my new passport with another stamp saying indefinate leave to remain for free or do i need to pay for the stamp and sit for the life in the uk exam? pls reply ..thanks.....

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It is a bit early here for me to understand all this - I am planning to get a work permit here, move to the UK, work, and then get married and stay in the UK. What is an "Indefinite Leave to Remain" and if I remain an American, why would I need to take a "Life in the UK" exam?

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indefinite leave to remain = permanent residency, if 've understood correctly. basically, this means there's no timelimit on you staying in the UK, and it's the first step towards citizenship.

you need to take the life in the UK exam because it's compulsory for people applying for indefinite leave/citizenship.

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Exactly.

ILR is NOT the same thing as citizenship though, nor are you ever required to apply for citizenship here if you have ILR status.

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although i thought the reverse _is_ true: to apply for citizenship, one _must_ have ILR?

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I hadn't thought it was, but I think you are mostly right.

From "Naturalisation as a British Citizen":

in the last 12 months of that five-year period, his or her stay in the United Kingdom was not subject to any time limit under the immigration laws

I say mostly right since I suspect there are a number of a major exceptions: EU nationals, for example, wouldn't have time limitations on their residency, would they?

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i dont think so, but then i dont think they need work visas either.

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They don't, although how they then implement some of the eastern European country quotas without visas confuses me. Or rather, I am in ignorance over how that's enforced.

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isnt most of E Europe in the EU?

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Yes, but there are transitional arrangements connected with the labour mobility clauses of the treaty. In effect, existing members can restrict immigration from the new members for the first few years of their membership.

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I would suspect that you do have to have ILR, because CLR is limited to a period of time that you would have to exceed in order to become a citizen, so far as I know.

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Thanks for explaining this - I want to be a permanent resident, and just that...

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The cost of the work permit you're applying for will increase on April 1st from the equivalent of £85 to £200. If you're applying on the grounds of being engaged, then I think that's the settlement visa, whose price will be increasing from £260 to £500 for applicants applying from outside of the UK. That's the first thing.

If you live in the UK on a work visa, regardless of being married, then work visa charges and renewals are all you need to worry about.

If you get married and want to switch visa status on those grounds, there are two possibilities.

1. If you get married and want to change visa status very shortly after moving over, you may have to apply for "limited leave to remain", a two year residency visa. I don't know if this is true or not for you if you arrive on a work visa. It probably isn't relevant, but I simply don't know.

2. The other option is to apply for indefinite leave to remain. This is a visa which lets you live in the UK with no limitations on when you have to leave. Its expiration date is tied to that of your passport. I don't know when you'd become eligible for it - certainly within two years of moving here, I would think, if not sooner. If your work visa lasts at least five years, you may not want to bother with ILR.

ILR is NOT the same thing as citizenship. It's the equivalent of Canadian "landed immigrant" status. It means you can live and work here or study or be unemployed and not be constantly renewing visas. It also means if you ever lost your job here, you wouldn't be thrown out.

Thus you might need to eventually take the "Life in the UK" exam, should you ever decide to apply for the ILR visa.

Note: if your passport expires in the next 2 or 3 years, you may wish to get it renewed now to avoid extra visa transfer applications, again, depending on the length of the visa you're applying for.

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Thanks! The work visa is the one I want; and then the ILR visa (my passport doesn't expire until 2010). At least that's what I can figure from here...I have to figure this out, clearly...

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I suspect that's what you want to do too. (But I'm not an immigration lawyer, laws do change, and I've never been on a work visa in the UK.)

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ILR does not expire when the passport does. someone of my close acquaintance continues to enter the UK with her old, cancelled passport containing her ILR stamp; she just has to carry them both, and present them both, on landing. they annotate her entry stamp "VIPP", which we thought was rather toney until we realised it stands for Visa In Previous Passport.

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That makes sense and I know exactly why I was confused about it. My initial settlement visa said I had indefinite leave to *enter*, but expired when my passport did. When I had to renew my passport and get my visa "transferred" to the new one, then I officially gained ILR. I say transferred since that's how I was thinking of it, but technically I was applying for a new visa, along with new fee. I shouldn't conflate settlement with ILR, but since the perks were identical, I've been carelessly conflationary.

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Hi after reading your discussion i got really worried about my status in this country right now...i came to the uk under a stamp'indefinate leave to enter' last december and soon after that i was offered a job and been working since, my problem is that my passport will expire in 2009 and my stamp of 'indefinate leave to enter' also was stamped to be valid till then ...what should i do? will i need to pay more to get 'indefinate leave to remain'? thank you ....
my email sheikh_siti@yahoo.co.uk

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This might be a dumb question, but none of this should affect my coming for three or four weeks this summer to work/visit friends, should it?

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I don't think it should. The recent rise of airport taxes will hit you though. It's now something like £80 or 90 for long haul flights.

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S. Worthen | Weblog

UK immigration changes

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