Luring immigrants and changing the rules

This is a warning to Sri Lankans and others who wish to live and work in the United Kingdom under the highly-skilled category. The rules and conditions under which they might be granted such a visa could suddenly be changed and changed with retrospective effect, often leaving migrants up a gum tree. Or, to change the metaphor, up the creek without a paddle. That is what has happened to several thousand persons who came here under the scheme.

When the United Kingdom announced some four years ago its highly-skilled migrants programme, there were literally tens of thousands of persons from the developing world who jumped at the idea of making a home in the UK, at least for four to five years.

These included persons with skills badly needed in the UK, for there were shortfalls in some disciplines and areas of work that the British tertiary and other institutions could not fill.

Moreover it would have taken the British government time and money to produce all the skilled persons it wanted, even if it had been inclined to do so. So it was easier to tap the trained resources available particularly in the developing world with no real expense to the British taxpayer.

This is what used to be called brain drain in the old days and later came to be known as reverse aid. For it was much cheaper for the west to import a person who had already been educated and gained experience either at state expense, as in Sri Lanka, or had done so at personal expense in his or her own country.

Take the case of doctors. It would have taken the British educational system six years to produce a doctor. How much easier then, to import experienced doctors from former British colonies where English remains the medium of education or an important second language.

The lure of better salaries and living conditions, and in some instances the chance of educating their children in western universities, were the attractions. The fact that educated and skilled persons were being drawn away from the countries that initially provided them those facilities often at state expense, did not worry the rich and industrialised west as long as their ends were served and their shortages were filled.

Those in the west that recite homilies about the need to improve the living standards in the developing world, reduce poverty, eliminate disease and improve sanitation and education, extend aid with much trumpet blowing.

But they have been silent about the charges that they were taking back with one hand what they had given with the other by attracting the academically and technically qualified people who are needed by the developing countries for the very purposes that the assistance is given.

While this debate will continue as long as the west pinches the best qualified people from the developing world, there is a new problem facing some of those who come here.

The British Government, either under pressure from anti-migration groups or because of the growing numbers that come to the UK because of the expansion of the European Union (now numbering 27 member states), do the dirty by those they have already attracted into the country.

The Times of London reported last week that the British Government has been accused of making thousands of skilled migrants destitute by luring them to Britain and then changing the rules that allowed them to work.

Some 20,000 persons have come here since the scheme was introduced. They include scientists, IT specialists and other technicians, entrepreneurs and teachers.

They had promised to make Britain their home and were in turn promised permanent residency after four years. But now Britain has reneged on its earlier promises, not unusual when it comes to nationality and migration issues. Readers might recall the hard and arduous struggle of some minorities in Hong Kong, who would have been stateless after the colony returned to Chinese sovereignty. Even then they were not all granted British citizenship, though some of those who failed would have been allowed to enter the UK visa-free.

Readers will also recall the 1983 British nationality law which changed overnight the status of some of those in former British colonies who had some sort of British nationality such as British National Overseas.

Now it is the turn of those who have come under the highly skilled migration programme to feel the effect of British perfidy. They must now apply to extend their visas under different criteria that place a new emphasis on high salaries and education and less on work experience though the system was called highly-skilled migration programme.

According to The Times, some 6000 persons would be affected by the change in rules imposed retrospectively last November.
The government has reportedly claimed that the revision was necessary in order to stop abuse of the system and to ensure that it attracts the right people.

But apparently that is not how some of the MPs who are snowed under by complaints from constituents see it. The MPs believe that these sudden changes violate natural justice as they are being introduced retrospectively and to migrants who came here under different criteria.

Moreover some skilled workers would now be forced to quit their jobs leaving employers hard put to find replacements which could, in the short term at least, affect the country's economic performance about which the Labour Party has been gloating for years.

Many of those who came here under the scheme sold their properties and other assets in their home countries, uprooted themselves from their jobs and society and came here hoping for an extended stay if not a permanent one.

Now many of them are left high and dry, compelled to pull their children out of schools or universities and probably return home empty handed instead of living in the El Dorado they envisioned in the UK.