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On 19 July 2010, the UK Government introduced a limit on the number of initial applications that can be issued under Tier 1 (General) of the points-based system until 31 March 2011. The limit does not affect applications from dependents or applications to extend existing Tier 1 visas.

The UK Border Agency administers the limit on a monthly basis. In order to avoid breaching the monthly allocation for October 2010 we stopped issuing visas for Tier 1 (General) on 20 October. The new limit for this month has opened today, 1 November 2010, and we are now restarting the granting of visas for successful Tier 1 (General) applications. All applications are processed in the order in which they are received at post in so far as that is operationally possible.

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Details of massive fraud and abuse of the popular H-2B work visa program have been made public by a government report, which shows that in one of such cases more than 87 Indian nationals paid at least USD 20,000 each to enter the US illegally.

“Several recent convictions have shown that some employers and recruiters may be abusing the foreign workers in the program,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in its letter to Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

The report details 10 cases of wrongdoings that showed violations in areas such as unfair wages for employees, excessive fees charged to employees, and fraudulent documentation submitted to federal agencies to circumvent program rules. The 10 cases that we reviewed demonstrate fraud and abuse committed by recruiters and employers participating in the H-2B visa program and operating in 29 states.

“The 10 cases that we reviewed demonstrate fraud and abuse committed by recruiters and employers participating in the H-2B visa program and operating in 29 states,” the report made public yesterday said.In six of the 10 cases GAO reviewed, there were allegations that employers did not pay their H-2B employees the established hourly wage, overtime, or both.

In six cases, employers charged their H-2B workers fee that was for the benefit of the employer or charged excessive fee that brought employees’ wages below the hourly federal minimum wage. Also in eight of the 10 cases, employers were alleged to have submitted fraudulent documentation.

The H2B working visa is a non-immigrant visa which allows foreign nationals to enter into the US temporarily and engage in non-agricultural employment that is seasonal, intermittent, or based on a peak load need. According to GAO, a company in Louisiana obtained USD 1.8 million from a fraudulent H-2B visa conspiracy to bring 87 Indian nationals into the United States illegally.

The company submitted fraudulent H-2B documentation to federal agencies allegedly seeking workers from India.It charged at least USD 20,000 each for the H-2B visas but never employed the Indians. The GAO report said representatives of the firm traveled to India to assist the Indians with the application process and corresponded with the US Consulate on behalf of the workers. These conspirators were indicted on federal criminal charges in 2008.

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The Indian Government has agreed to streamline visa procedures for citizens from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines, said the Financial Times of India on October 31.

Citizens from the four ASEAN nations will be granted immigration visas to enter India at the border. The decision will come into force as of January 1 next year. India has finalised a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on developing tourism with ASEAN countries.

Around 3 million Indian people visit ASEAN countries each year and there are 380 flights from India to ASEAN countries every week. On India-ASEAN trade relations, the newspaper quoted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 8th ASEAN-India Summit in Hanoi, saying that ASEAN is a nucleus for the economic links that should be established in the Asia-Pacific region. The Indian PM also said he hoped that the necessary procedures for implementing the India-ASEAN free trade agreement on the exchange of goods will be completed soon.

In addition, the signing of cooperation agreements on services and investment will give fresh impetus to the two sides’ common goal of promoting comprehensive economic cooperation.

We hope that this will be a positive steps towards improving bilateral ties.

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Canada has admitted recently that its new visa application form, criticized by Russia for seeking sensitive information on applicants’ military service, aims to weed out visitors inadmissible to Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada ‘must protect the health and safety of Canadians, maintain the security of Canadian society and promote international justice and security by fostering respect for human rights’.

‘Temporary resident applicants from a number of countries have been asked questions regarding military, security and political activities that could make someone inadmissible in the past to ensure that officers have adequate information when determining admissibility to Canada.’ The new visa application form merely attempts to standardize various questions that have been asked before and eliminate the need for country-specific forms.

Earlier, Russia protested against the new visa application form issued by Canada, complaining it will ‘seriously complicate’ the application process for Russians and could provoke reciprocal measures. ‘The modified Canadian form goes beyond the conventional criteria, and its adoption goes against the global tendency to ease visa regimes,’ Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said at a briefing. The new form will ‘make the process for Russian citizens to receive Canadian visas much harder,’ he added. Russian tourist operators also complained this week that the form, required for visa applicants outside Canada, asks for information that is illegal for Russian citizens to disclose. Applicants are asked to provide details about military service, including location of the military unit and name of the commanding officer.

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The Finnish Immigration Service is looking into the possibility of introducing a citizenship test in Finland.

According to a report in the Turun Sanomat daily, immigrants applying for Finnish citizenship would have to pass the test before being granted the right to a Finnish passport. Officials say the results would also help them evaluate the effectiveness of integration programmes.

The possibility of administering such a screening procedure has not previously been investigated in Finland. Other European countries currently apply some kind of test to citizenship applicants.

However Jorma Vuorio, Chief Immigration Director, said the test would not ease the backlog in citizenship applications, since other conditions must be met by applicants before citizenship can be granted. These prerequisites include a clean police record, residence of a certain duration and adequate proficiency in the Finnish language. Vuorio added that a compulsory language test could be part of the citizenship screening.

This year citizenship requests grew by four percent, with immigration authorities receiving about 1,500 applications at the beginning of the year.

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Great article by our Law Clerk, Andrew Desposito about Arizona Style Immigration movement. An immigrant-rights group has released a report predicting that 25 states may try next year to pass anti-illegal-immigration laws similar to Arizona’s controversial legislation.

The number of states considering legislation modeled after SB1070, the bill that Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law this spring, is apparently growing: Earlier, pro-enforcement groups said 22 states were considering the bill, the Washington Independent’s Elise Foley notes.

The new efforts are going forward even after a federal judge ruled key parts of the Arizona law unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement in Arizona in July. That decision is now under appeal before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court.

Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina are most likely to pass a similar law next year, the new report says. Tennessee, Utah, Florida, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Colorado, Virginia, Minnesota, Missouri, Idaho and Kansas made the report’s “maybe” list. In Maryland, Nevada, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Rhode Island, the legislation is seen as less likely to pass.

The report notes that from 2006 to 2008, municipalities passed a host of local laws and statutes cracking down on employers hiring illegal immigrants.

This next wave of legislation, the report says, will be aimed at getting local law enforcement to check immigration status in routine police stops, as SB1070 mandates.

Such a trend only goes to show how reactionary immigration views have become since Arizona passed SB1070. Because there has been so much talk about how the Federal government has not done enough to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to the U.S., more and more people in other states are identifying with Arizona and its current attempt to curtail illegal immigration through their state legislatures. As evidenced above, more states look to address the issue in the coming year.

Lawmakers may be influenced by how the Ninth Circuit rules on SB1070, and how the Supreme Court rules on the state’s 2007 employer-sanction law passed. Finances may also influence local politicians’ decisions, as more immigration-related arrests and court battles end up costing cities and counties that adopt such rules.

One industry stands to benefit from such laws. In Arizona’s case, the private prison industry helped guide the process that made SB1070 law and even gave the legislation its name while working with legislators, NPR reports. Thirty of the cosponsors to SB1070 later received money from the private prison industry or its lobbyists. With certain lobbyists behind the push for such a law, it is a concern that not only those who hold conservative views on immigration would be behind passing such a law, but also those who stand to benefit financially as well.

Of course, if more people voice their concerns over such laws in the states considering such an anti-immigration law, then perhaps there will be more discussion in the Federal government for what it will do to prevent states from entering the area of regulating immigration.

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Moscow is hoping for the speedier signing of a border deal with Poland on simpler border passage for citizens of the neighboring Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The issue is among the highlights during Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s current visit to Warsaw. European laws allow visa-free travel for people living within 30 km from the EU border.

Mr. Lavrov and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski are considering expanding the future agreement to include the whole of the Kaliningrad region and the adjoining Polish provinces

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Taiwan moved another step closer to obtaining visa exemption treatment from Schengen countries after the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) passed a visa liberalization motion for Taiwan yesterday, sending the proposal to a vote at the parliament’s plenary session late next month.

James Lee, Director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, said progress in the review of the proposal was going according to plan and the ministry remained cautiously optimistic about securing the privilege by the end of this year.

The European Parliament said in a press release that the LIBE had nearly unanimously adopted the proposal, with only one vote against, in favor of placing Taiwan on the list of countries exempt from EU visa controls. “The liberalization of visas for Taiwan will enable trade ties to develop,” rapporteur Agustin Diaz de Mera, a member of the European Parliament, said in the press release.

Diaz de Mera added that the EU had “already granted this exemption to other countries and entities in the same geographical area and at a similar level of economic development, such as Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, South Korea and Singapore,” the press release said.

If parliament passes the proposal, it will proceed to the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the Council of the EU for approval, expected in early December, the ministry said. Taiwan does not require visas for nationals from most EU member states, with the exception of Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria. The ministry said that under the principle of reciprocity, Taiwan would add the three countries to its exemption list by the end of this year if Taiwan were granted visa exemption for Schengen nations.

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Mauritius and Switzerland on Wednesday signed an agreement on short-stay visa waiver under which Mauritians could stay in the European country without visa for a maximum of three months in a six-month period.

Mauritius and the European Community (EC) signed a similar agreement on 28 May, 2009, allowing Mauritians to enter and stay without visa in the territory of the European Union (EU) member States within the Schengen Area for the same period.

Mauritian Secretary for Foreign Affairs Anun Neewoor, said that under the combined effect of both agreements Mauritians could travel without a visa to the 25 EU member States and Switzerland and stay for a maximum period of three months with multiple-entry facilities within a six-month period.

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The Swedish National Migration Board will allow visiting students to apply online for their entry visas and residence permits, as well as pay their fees on its website. The goal of the move is to offer better service, as well as reduce the waiting time to process applications. The service will be initially introduced on a small scale, then gradually be introduced to Swedish embassies and consulates.

Two groups of applicants can now make use of the electronic services. Those who do not need an entry visa to visit Sweden can apply for a residence permit for visiting students on the agency’s website. The application will then be processed in Sweden and the permit issued by the embassy or consulate indicated by the applicant.

For Chinese residents, those who must apply for a visa for any kind of visit to Sweden, or a residence permit for visiting students can do so online for applications handled by the Swedish embassy in Beijing.

Applicants can submit all their information online and pay the application fee electronically before the mandatory embassy visit, making the application process more efficient.The Swedish consulate in Shanghai will also offer these services next month. They will be rolled out at other Swedish missions next year.

According to the agency, in 2009, Sweden’s embassy and consulate received nearly 2,500 applications for visiting student permits out of about 16,900 in various other countries around the world.