Weekly Immigration News Round up 22 November 09

Government to launch review of student visas

Student visa system to be reviewed.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced a review of the student visa process, to clamp down on people applying to study in the UK with the intention of working illegally when they get here. 

The review, reporting in December, will consider whether visas should be granted only to foreign students on degree and postgraduate courses and stopped for those seeking to take shorter courses leading to lower-level qualifications. 

The review, which comes just eight months after the launch of Tier 4 for student visas, would ”look at the case for raising the minimum level of course for which foreign students can get a visa,” Brown said.

Migrants worry over new immigration rules

A group representing professionals from India and other non-European Union countries has said that Britain’s efforts to tighten immigration should not result in the retrospective application of new laws.

Councils lose 145 child asylum seekers

145 children and young people went missing without trace from local authority care homes last year, according to returns from local councils. Most were juvenile asylum seekers who had arrived in the UK alone.

UK bound migrants applying for visas should take ‘English language test’, say MPs

The Daily Mail reports that immigrants applying for UK visas should undergo an English test, said two senior MPs this week.

Government-approved Tier 2 shortage occupation list published

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) published its proposals for a revised shortage occupation list on 21 October.

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