Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER In the first post in this series, I examined the route to naturalisation as a British Citizen for people who have obtained Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) or Settled Status in the UK. There are, however, other routes to becoming a British Citizen for people who meet very specific criteria. These routes are important because if one of them applies to you, you will be able to become a British Citizen much sooner than after the

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER The idea of British Citizenship is a concept that has meant very different things over the course of recent British history, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries, and still means very different things to different people. At its core, it is a legal status, in the same category as being licensed to drive or being employed. These days, however, someone describing themselves as ‘British’ or ‘a British Citizen’ is not only a sign of their

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER “I’ve never come across an area where criminal activity is so rife.”   Those were the words of John Tuckett, the Immigration Services Commissioner, in August of this year when describing the world of immigration legal advice. In truth, he was commenting on an epidemic of unregulated bogus providers of immigration legal services scamming people out of large amounts of money by falsely guaranteeing success in visa or asylum applications at a low price. Tuckett’s department,

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER As we enter Suella Braverman’s third week at Home Office since she replaced Priti Patel in the first week of September, the new Home Secretary will doubtless have been fully aware of the department’s myriad of problems. One of the most pressing ones is the growing backlog of pending applications for visas and asylum. The numbers are simply astounding and threaten to completely overwhelm the Home Office. The backlog of pending asylum claims currently stands at

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER This past week saw an important change of the guard at the Home Office. Priti Patel, who had served as Home Secretary since June 2019, announced her decision to step down on Monday (5 September), in a letter addressed to outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom himself resigned the next day in order for the new Conservative Party leader Liz Truss to be appointed Prime Minister. Patel’s tenure as Home Secretary overlapped with the UK leaving

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER Both the war in Ukraine and the UK government’s controversial plan to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda have brought asylum and Refugees to the forefront of political discourse in the UK. The word ‘Refugee’ is often used as an umbrella term for people fleeing violence and seeking asylum, however many of those people will not be granted official Refugee Status but instead will be given Humanitarian Protection, which is something entirely separate. With that in mind,

Gilbert TRAINEE IMMIGRATION ADVISER On 22 August 2022, the UK government launched a new visa system that provides fast-growing businesses with a quick and easy route to accessing highly skilled individuals from across the globe and bringing them to the UK. The Scale-Up Visa allows businesses demonstrating impressive growth to employ highly skilled individuals who will receive leave to remain in the UK for two years without requiring further sponsorship or permission beyond the first six months. After those first