Uk Visa Conditions

[melonf]

From the Times (UK)

Britons sponsoring visits by overseas relatives will be fined at least £1,000 if their relatives overstay or work illegally, under new immigration proposals published yesterday.

Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, published a range of proposals including reducing the length of a visitors visa to three months, raising the age for a marriage visa and the creation of an official forum that will offer guidance to ministers on the impact of immigration on existing communities.

Among the proposals were further measures to ensure that foreigners do not travel to Britain unless entitled to do so.

Immigration overstayers will have their bank accounts frozen and families of overstayers will be barred from bringing in other relatives in future.

Universities and employers will be banned from bringing in people in future if foreigners they have sponsored already fail to return home.

The measures are planned as the Government prepares for a huge increase in the number of people heading for Britain. In 2005 11.8 million travellers entered Britain from outside the European Economic Area and, in 2005-2006 two million visas were granted.

Mr Byrne disclosed that movements in and out of Britain will increase by 50 per cent over the next seven years.

Britons who support a sponsored family vistor’s visa will also be expected to maintain and accommodate their family members during the visit.

Under the Government’s proposals they will also be expected to fund nonemergency medical care. All visitors will be made to take out medical insurance.

Mr Byrne said: “I think a fine of £1,000 or more will encourage sponsors to take their responsibilities seriously. We need to consult with a number of organisations about how best this can be put into effect.”

The plan also proposed raising the minimum age for a marriage visa from 18 to 21, in an attempt to bar forced marriages.

The proposal will affect everyone seeking to come into Britain for the purpose of marriage from outside the European Economic Area. It will largely affect people from the Indian subcontinent and will mean 3,000 fewer people from that area coming to Britain each year. Spouses or fiancées from outside the European Economic Area may have to pass an English test.

People who use false documents to apply for a visa may have any subsequent application rejected automatically.

The Home Office is considering reducing the length of a visitor’s visa from six to three months after research showed that only 2 per cent of people with the visa intended to stay longer than three months.

The Home Office is also planning a special time-limited cut-price visa for the Olympics and specialised visas for big international events, visiting arts companies and sports teams.

[Berty]

A step in tyhe right direction I say.

[Prakanong]

I used to say if I put a 10k GBP deposit down you can keep if the visitor broke the rules was the way to go.

I will get shot down for this of course

[Mahout Angrit]

How are they going to know if the visitor has overstayed if they continue not to check people leaving the country unless they pick them up in the street. Sounds like political talk to me.

[PhilHarries]

"Universities and employers will be banned from bringing in people in future if foreigners they have sponsored already fail to return home."

If implemented one bad apple could spoilt it for all subsequent students hoping for that particular uni.

But as MA rightly points out, without passport checks at exit points how the hel_l will they know unless they start doing ID checks?

As you say, political hot air to make it look like they are doing something about immigration to the "too many immigrants" patriot brigade.

[Prakanong]

How are they going to know if the visitor has overstayed if they continue not to check people leaving the country unless they pick them up in the street. Sounds like political talk to me.

Exactly - why do we not check?

[gummy]

That means the "British" Pakistanies, Indians, Ugandans and West Indians will be potententially forking out a lot of money for bogus sponsorships and "sham" marriages. My question is why has it taken 50 + years for the UK government to stamp down on it ? Or may be they now realise they have to restrict these ethnic folk as they prefer Romanian and Hungarian immigrants instead and they can not allow too many to flood in and claim benefit.

[melonf]

How are they going to know if the visitor has overstayed if they continue not to check people leaving the country unless they pick them up in the street. Sounds like political talk to me.

Exactly - why do we not check?

From the UK Government background paper dicusing these proposal (fascinating reading):

The progressive introduction of exit checks will

also mean we know who leaves, and can check

them off against arrival records. We will use

this information to shut down any access to

benefits and services when people have left the

UK. We will also feed information about

overstayers and other forms of abuse back into

the system so that we can use this history, if

necessary, to stop them coming in if they apply

to come back into the country later on.

[Prakanong]

How are they going to know if the visitor has overstayed if they continue not to check people leaving the country unless they pick them up in the street. Sounds like political talk to me.

Exactly - why do we not check?

From the UK Government background paper dicusing these proposal (fascinating reading):

The progressive introduction of exit checks will

also mean we know who leaves, and can check

them off against arrival records. We will use

this information to shut down any access to

benefits and services when people have left the

UK. We will also feed information about

overstayers and other forms of abuse back into

the system so that we can use this history, if

necessary, to stop them coming in if they apply

to come back into the country later on.

I know the history of large scale public IT projects is lettered with abysmal failures but if a country such as Thailand (Thaigoon step in) can run such a simple system why can we not?

Its not just the Labour govt either - this has gone on for years.

[Mahout Angrit]

I know the history of large scale public IT projects is lettered with abysmal failures but if a country such as Thailand (Thaigoon step in) can run such a simple system why can we not?

Exactly, even a simple card system like Thailand has had for years, it may not work, they may never match the two pieces up but at least it is a deterent as you never know if one day they might.

The Thai computerised (and mug shot) system seems to work, at least at airports, so it shouldn't be so difficult to implement in UK. It shouldn't be too difficult to use data from the airlines or ferry check in system either so no need for extra staffing, just get the computers to work.

[Prakanong]

I know the history of large scale public IT projects is lettered with abysmal failures but if a country such as Thailand (Thaigoon step in) can run such a simple system why can we not?

Exactly, even a simple card system like Thailand has had for years, it may not work, they may never match the two pieces up but at least it is a deterent as you never know if one day they might.

The Thai computerised (and mug shot) system seems to work, at least at airports, so it shouldn't be so difficult to implement in UK. It shouldn't be too difficult to use data from the airlines or ferry check in system either so no need for extra staffing, just get the computers to work.

The problem is they would over-spec it and end up with a disaster like so many other public IT systems who the likes of EDS etc have lived on the back of for years.

As you say a simple system aigned with airline or ferry tickets is all that is required

The fact that we do not know who is in the country is shameful - the fact that a terrorist can get 6 passports is even more so

[atlastaname]

This is quite a big shake up. Will make it tougher for all in the future who need a visa. Can't understand why they are bothering to reduce the term from 6 months to 3 if only 2% of people use that. Just leave it alone makes more sense

[BIGJIMMY]

Getting there, its all in the right direction.

Jimmy

[samran]

Scouse probably knows the history best, but exit checks from the UK were scrapped as a cost cutting measure I beleive. Given the number of exit and entry points into and out of the UK, plus the fact that you can go to/from Ireland and then onto other places, I'm guessing that the new IT system to handle this will have to be excellent.

Australia, from experience, has excellent checks in and out, but then you only have a relatively small bunch of airports and ports to service. It is linked to the social welfare computer service, so they when exactly to cut of benefits if you are OS, most of which, can't be claimed if you are away from more than 13 weeks.

[the gent]

The Home Office track record in IT procurement is abysmal and against this background one must take the rhetoric contained in the briefing paper with a considerable pinch of salt.

The notion that an accurate record of those arriving will be matched with those departing is not something likely to be realised in the near future unless of course the government is going to backtrack on its forthcoming ' comprehensive spending review ', a euphemism for drastic cuts in public expenditure.

To put it into context, in 2005 approximately 220 million passengers travelled through UK airports, the greater proportion internationally. The belief that somehow the cost of monitoring this traffic will be offset by gains in social welfare savings and a dividend in the bogus war against terrorism and immigration abuse is a fantasy worthy of even the most committed of paranoids.

As far as I am aware there have been only two regimes capable of such a prodigious feat of surveillance, the former Soviet bloc backed up by an army of KGB numbering several millions and the USof A whose current philosophy is not too distant from the former they affected to so despise.

Shades of 1984 n'est-ce pas?

Edited March 30, 2007 by the gent

[samran]

To put it into context, in 2005 approximately 220 million passengers travelled through UK airports, the greater proportion internationally. The belief that somehow the cost of monitoring this traffic will be offset by gains in social welfare savings and a dividend in the bogus war against terrorism and immigration abuse is a fantasy worthy of even the most committed of paranoids.

True, but things that win votes are often mean that conventional economic cost benefit analysis like yours are thrown out the window.

Australia has what it calls migration zones, inclusive of the Australian mainland, but not of outlying islands and dependent territories and territorial waters. Even if you are a refugee/illegal immigrant intercepted outside of migration zones, you are not to be processed on the Australian mainland. Instead, you are shipped off to a Pacific island like Naru, where you are locked up at huge expense, while your refugee claim is processed. Hugely expensive, but hugely popular.

Drastically different to the 1980's when migration zones didn't exist, and E.Timorese refugees (while still in refugee limbo) were actally allowed to work, pay taxes, contribute to society and get on with their lives.