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UK: Small businesses face stiffer penalties for hiring illegal migrants

The new Conservative government plans to come down really hard on small businesses that employ illegal migrants as well as the migrants themselves.

Under proposals to be included in the Immigration Bill to be presented in Parliament, takeaway restaurants and local convenience shops or locally known as off-licences could face losing their licence to operate if they are found to be employing illegal workers.

The government is also considering whether this provision should be widened to cover minicab operators and drivers, the BBC reports.

In addition, the legal defence for other businesses found using illegal workers will be amended to remove their ability to claim they did not know an employee was not allowed to work. Businesses will have to show that they carried out proper checks before employing staff.

The maximum sentence for employers found guilty of hiring illegal migrants will be raised from two to five years, in addition to the fines that are in place, the broadcaster said.

And that is not all. In an all encompassing change to the Immigration Bill, those who work illegally in England and Wales face up to six months in jail, as well as an unlimited fine and wages being seized.

This is the latest of a series of announcements made by the government to crack down on illegal migrants.

Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said: "Anyone who thinks the UK is a soft touch should be in no doubt - if you are here illegally, we will take action to stop you from working, renting a flat, opening a bank account or driving a car.

"As a one nation government we will continue to crack down on abuse and build an immigration system that works in the best interests of the British people and those who play by the rules," he said.

While Alp Mehmet from Migration Watch UK, which supports tougher immigration controls, welcomed the move, he said: "Let us hope that the authorities will not shy away from acting on the powers they are to be given, since their record on that front has not always been exemplary."

The BBC said immigration officers are reported to be preparing to mount a wave of raids this autumn targeting building sites, care homes and cleaning contractors.

Student with four A* A-levels refused finance over immigration status

A student who was awarded four A* grades at A-level is facing an anxious wait to hear whether he will be able to take up an offer from Imperial College due to a dispute over his immigration status.
Hassan al-Sherbaz, 18, has been refused a student loan despite having lived in Britain for half his life. Sherbaz, who arrived in the UK with his parents aged nine, has been educated at primary and secondary schools in Milton Keynes.
When Sherbaz applied for student finance he was told his immigration status – of discretionary leave to remain – means he is not eligible for a loan. His status means he would have to pay the international tuition fee rate at £26,000 a year.
He now faces deferring his offer for two years while he applies for indefinite leave to remain status, which will make him eligible for student finance. Sherbaz said: “I feel like I will have lost time in comparison to my peers.”
Sherbaz said he remembers the day he was told his loan application had been refused. “It was a very big shock,” he said. “I was thinking what am I going to do and how am I going to afford this. But I was very motivated to prove myself that I can get through this.”
On Thursday Sherbaz celebrated four A*s in maths, further maths, physics and chemistry, meeting his offer to study chemical engineering at Imperial College London. Sherbaz dreams of a career in the oil industry. “I have a lot of ambitions in helping society and the environment.”
Sherbaz’s family relocated from Baghdad to Britain in 2006 so his father could take up a PhD. Sherbaz remembers the Iraqi capital as “very dangerous”. “There were killings in the street,” he says. “It was something that was part of our daily lives.”
Sherbaz has been offered hope by a recent supreme court decision that could pave the way for hundreds of people, like Sherbaz, who are settled in Britain and have been to school in this country to carry on to higher education. The supreme court found that the blanket exclusionary rulepreventing anyone except UK citizens or those with indefinite leave to remain in the UK from applying for student loans was disproportionate and could not be justified.
Rachel Knowles, a solicitor at Just for Kids Law, the charity who brought the case,known as Tigere v secretary of state for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis), said: “We are hopeful that the government will take account of the decision in Tigere and revise the guidance for all students in similar situations. We are very happy to work with the government on this.
“Since the judgment we have been contacted by a large number of young people in these situations. We will try to provide them with individual support to resolve their financing issues but we hope that soon the rules will change so that we won’t have to take each case individually.”
A Bis spokesperson said the government was considering the detail of the Tigere ruling.

Source@guardian

Nigeria, others may get US Visa lottery eligibility again - The Nation Nigeria the US Visa Lottery may be returned to eligibility list as the list is modified every year based on trends of the previous five years within which they were removed.

Work restrictions on foreign students extended in visa fraud crackdown

Thousands of foreign students at publicly funded colleges are to lose the right to work in Britain while they study, under a Home Office crackdown.

The immigration minister, James Brokenshire, announced on Monday that from next month students from outside the European Union who come to study at publicly funded further education colleges will lose the right to work for up to 10 hours a week.

The “new crackdown on visa fraud”, as the Home Office describes it, is aimed at ensuring that student visas are used for study and “not as a backdoor to the country’s job market”.

Further measures will be introduced this autumn, including:

Reducing the length of further education visas from three years to two.
Preventing college students from applying to stay on in Britain and work when they finish their course, unless they leave the country first.
Preventing further education students from extending their studies in Britain unless they are registered at an institution with a formal link to a university.

The number of foreign students at British further education colleges has slumped in recent years from a peak of more than 110,000 in 2011 to 18,297 in the last 12 months.

The fall is partly a result of a squeeze by the home secretary, Theresa May, in an attempt to reduce annual net migration to below 100,000.

Ministers say the fall is also a result of a drive to reduce visa fraud and close down hundreds of privately funded “bogus” colleges.

The latest changes extend restrictions on non-EU students at privately funded colleges to those at publicly funded colleges. It is thought that there are about 5,000 non-EU students at publicly funded colleges, many of them studying for A-levels before applying to British universities.
International students in the UK: who are they really?
Read more

Brokenshire said there had been signs of increased fraud at some publicly funded colleges and evidence of immigration advisers advertising college visas as a means to work in Britain.

“Immigration offenders want to sell illegal access to the UK jobs market, and there are plenty of people willing to buy,” he said. “Hardworking taxpayers who are helping to pay for publicly funded colleges expect them to be providing top-class education, not a backdoor to a British work visa.”

The Association of Colleges warned that the government’s crackdown risks seriously restricting Britain’s ability to attract international students.

“Preventing international FE students continuing to study in the UK after they have finished their studies will limit the progression of students from colleges to universities,” said its chief executive, Martin Doel .

“A-levels andinternational foundation year courses represent legitimate study routes for international students with many going on to successfully complete degrees at top-ranking universities. In blocking the route from further education to university, the government will do long-term harm to the UK as an international student destination and this policy needs urgent reconsideration.”

He added that the colleges had stringent monitoring systems to check attendance and were keen to see any evidence that they were being used as a backdoor for bogus students.