New UK Emigration Laws Concern Indian Emigrants

Reports now show that leading group representing professionals from India, as well as other non-European Union countries have said that Britain's efforts to tighten its emigration should not mean the retrospective application of new laws. This announcement came after the UK government announced last week that it had draft up a bill that seeks to further tighten emigration rules, which would include emigrants being granted permission to enter or stay in the UK.

Amit Kapadia, the executive director of the Highly Skilled Emigrant Forum, said that the introduction of new laws often results in targeting existing emigrants who are responsible tax payers and law abiding residents already in the UK. Emigrants now have to satisfy the requirements of the point based system before they can enter, work and stay in the UK.

He went on to say that, in his view of the current economic climate, there could be instances of emigrants losing their jobs, and thus, he believes that these are circumstances that must be taken into consideration when deciding on whether or not they will be permitted to continuously live in the country. This new short occupation list would significantly reduce the number of foreign employees, which will affect many existing emigrants' emigration status.

Kapadia went on to say that it is not justified for the government to exercise its power of expulsion indiscriminately, especially if these emigrants were unaware of the changing circumstances when they first made their applications. It is now his concern that the new draft bill., which is intended to streamline the power of expulsion, would further abuse human rights laws.