Britain in a policy paper on its post-Brexit approach to immigration is trying to entice migrants from countries such as India, Pakistan to fill in the shortage of highly-skilled workers. In an exclusive meeting, a senior representative from the Foreign Commonwealth Office told Asian Voice, that British officials this week are heading to India to discuss views on the 'Immigration White Paper' that was unveiled by the Secretary of the State recently. UK Government officials on 16 January visited New Delhi for these talks with the Government of India. The migration discussions signalled a new phase of cooperation and acted as a forum to discuss opportunities to strengthen the bilateral relationship.
The Migration Dialogue allowed for UK Government officials to engage directly with their Indian counterparts on the UK’s plans for a new single, skills-based immigration system after Brexit. In addition, the UK Government delegation held roundtable events with key figures from the corporate, business and education sectors in India, to gather insight and highlight how the new system will benefit them.
The proposals for the skills-based based immigration system, operating from 2021, will allow people from across the world to come to the UK for work or to study and to visit. The UK Government wants to encourage skilled workers to come to live and work in the UK and has proposed to abolish the cap on its new skilled visa route when the new system comes into effect in 2021. These proposals will mean that there would be no limit on the number of skilled people, such as engineers, doctors and IT professionals, who can come to live and work in the UK.
However while the government is ushering in new skilled immigrants into UK, according to a governmental review in the end of November, it was revealed that the Home Office had wrongly tried to force at least 300 existing highly-skilled migrants to leave Britain under Art 322(5), an immigration rule used in to tackle criminals such as terrorists and those judged to be a threat to national security.
The figures further revealed in the report that using the controversial 322(5) provision, up to 87 highly skilled migrants, from various fields, including teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and IT professionals, have actually been wrongly forced to leave the UK under the terrorism-related legislation. A further 400 people may have been affected.
Highly-skilled migrants request tribunal intervention
The issues for the highly-skilled migrants are manifold. First, Article 322(5) itself is a very broad category. It is essentially meant for grievous harm and criminals such as terrorists or war criminals. A mere tax discrepancy cannot be featured under that section- and it is common sense. But the irony of the situation is, booked under this category, a man of Muslim origin is getting labelled as terrorist, wrongfully, that too in the current climate.
Second, appellants have argued that many times the case workers have decided on the fate of the application giving generic reasoning of refusal, sometimes even basing it on errors- in one case the decision was taken based on someone's previous earnings. Many of these applicants, who are Indians, Africans and Pakistanis, have ever been called for interviews for further explanations, even when some of them have provided explanations for tax discrepancies. The delays and errors between different government departments have added to the complications. Some have had to wait for 19-24 months to get a decision, that is even after applying via same day service and appearing in person.
Third, families settled here- many have children- a set routine life – which is affected by Home Office's decisions. A research has shown out of 176 responses from highly-skilled applicants, 33.5% have been here in the UK over 12 years. Out of which 73.3% have spouses or partners. Many have children, most of them are UK born, and go to school. Some have disabilities, including autism and speech impediments.
34.1% of these people have waited about 24 months to have a response back from Home Office. After the refusal on Set(O) applications, their right to work and rent have been forfeited. As a result, they have had no recourse to money or earning. With children and family, this has been harder than one can imagine.
Speaking to the Highly Skilled Migrant group in UK, Asian Voice was told that slowly one or two cases are getting positive results on their pending applications though the appeals are getting challenged.
Salman Faruqi from the Highly Skilled UK told Asian Voice exclusively, “The court has merged four cases of 322(5) as a test case, and we have sent our intervention with the support of Migrants' Rights Network, a charity that supports rights of migrants in UK, ITN Solicitors and Sonali Naik QC as our counsel. The tribunal intervention on human rights grounds was requested as late as in December, yet the Lord Justice has decided to make decision on intervention application on the day of hearing on 22nd and 23rd January, understanding the dire need of the situation.”
While the right to work has been taken away, many of the appellants are in urgent need of monetary backing to fight the case at court. Considering that the Highly Skilled group has organised for a crowdfunding. So far they have raised £30,000 by personal funds, but looking to raise another £15,000 to meet the costs.
However many things haven't yet been raised with the Secretary of the State. The New Tier 1 guidance which was published after the review, said everyone whose visa were rejected should have been interviewed- none so far from the HSM group.
A representative of the Eldons Berkeley Solicitors told Asian Voice, “We have written proof that previous interviews which were done in 2016 or potentially up until 2017, none of them were recorded. Many applicants had complained that a lot of things were missed or mistyped by the interviewer, but there was no proof because they were not recorded. Now new interviews which are conducted are recorded by audio and video. Home office need to understand these migrants have been struggling since atleast 3 years. They need to realise they are dealing with human lives.”
