5000 disenfranchised Indians can return to UK

LONDON: At least 5,000 Indians, disenfranchised by the UK's recent diktats on immigration policy that forced them to return to the mother country, are to be allowed to re-enter Britain, in the latest twist in the two-year-old wrangle over holders of Highly-Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP ) visas.

The British government published its new guidelines on the rights available to non-European immigrant workers on Wednesday. The guidelines offer full protection to non-European holders of HSMP visas, of whom at least 30,000 are estimated to be Indian.

Amit Kapadia, director of the non-profit campaigning organization HSMP Forum Ltd, told TOI the British government "had finally played fair with non-European workers, but then they had no choice".

Kapadia and the HSMP Forum Ltd, who led a long and tortuous 14-month-long campaign for equal rights, worsted the British government in early April when the High Court in London decisively ruled the immigration changes "unlawful" and a rank "abuse of (administrative) power".

The High Court judgement dismissed the UK government's argument that it was in the "public interest...the national interest" retrospectively to apply changes to HSMP visas.

The April ruling, by Judge Sir George Newman, meant that Britain would be forced to grant entry, residence and/or settlement to non-European Union nationals who entered the UK under the 2002 HSMP rules.

Accordingly, the British government has now decreed a fresh look at categories of non-European migrants, including Indian and other non-European HSMP visa-holders forced to leave the UK after the new, restrictive guidelines were put in place in November 2006.

Kapadia said the government's "new Policy Guidance covers migrants who were admitted under the HSMP scheme before 5th December 2006. Various categories of migrants are covered under the policy including those who were refused extension under the unlawful rules, those migrants who did not apply for extension and migrants who have either switched immigration categories to more restrictive visa regimes or those who left the UK".

In November 2006, the British government introduced a new, retrospectively-imposed Points-Based System, which effectively disenfranchised large swathes of the 49,000 non-Europeans who successfully entered the UK under the scheme between January 2002 and late 2006.

The HSMP Forum said it was "delighted to have achieved our objective in fighting the manifest injustice of retrospectively applied legislation".

Commentators said the extent of British government unbending could be gauged from the fact the new guidelines decreed that non-European "migrants whose extensions were refused after the November 2006 unlawful changes will not have to pay application fee again for a review of the decision under the old criteria".

Additionally, Indian HSMP visa-holders forced to leave the UK earlier this year, after the new rules were stringently implemented, will be allowed back without fuss. They can also offset the length of their India sojourn against the HSMP visa requirements leading to full and permanent settlement in the UK.

Kapadia said the British government had admittedly done everything it could to facilitate the return of non-European HSMP visa-holders. But he added, "they had no choice. We had told them we would take them to court otherwise".