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The Voice Of Britain's Highly Skilled Migrants Organising A Protest Against The Home Office In The United Kingdom On June 16

The Voice of Britain's Highly Skilled Migrants (VBSI) is organising a protest against the recent changes made by the Home Office in the United Kingdom, which retrospectively changed the time period to apply for residency from four to five years.

Legal skilled migrants on Work Permit (WP), Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and Ancestry Visa will hold a demonstration outside the Parliament on Friday, 16 June to protest the retrospective application of the new immigration rules that will disturb the lives of more than 100 thousand migrants and their dependents and will have a direct cost within the United Kingdom of more than £15 million.

The movement is also supported from inside the Parliament. On the day of the demonstration, Labour MP Andrew Dismore will present the case to the House of Commons and hand over an official petition signed by 1,700 people. More than 40 MPs from all parties have already expressed their support and promised to press for the new rules to be overturned.

These new rules will bring the period required by legal migrants to qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain from four years to five years (ILR 4-5.) Instead of applying the rules to new migrants, the previous administration of the Home Office, in an unfair and unwise move, imposed them retrospectively on current migrants, who came to the United Kingdom under the old rules with no regard to the consequences both on these migrant and on the British economy.

Migrants feel this is unfair because of the lack of consultation, absence of full Regulatory Impact Assessment and because of its defiance of the legitimate expectation of current migrants that the rules would not be changed in mid-play.

It is unwise because it will clearly cost the British economy, create an atmosphere of distrust and drive potential skilled migrants to choose other countries with more reliable immigration policies.

Thousands of migrants are still unaware of the changes, simply because the Home Office did not even inform them. Those who do know are shocked. Two online petitions against the act have collected almost 1,000 signatures. Some devastated migrants have expressed their frustration on Voice of Britain’s Skilled Immigrants’ Web site (www.VBSI.org.uk):

This demonstration will be the first and largest of its kind and it will be a great opportunity for press coverage.

For more information about this event contact Lok Wong, the event coordinator on 44-793-2-829-267 or e-mail lok.wong@christine-lee.co.uk.
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