This is a rather important point you have noticed.d1o wrote:Can anyone tell me how increasing the points threshold from 75 to 80 (or 95 to 100) for first time in-country applicants (like psw holders) from 19 July, 2010 stop a last minute rush into the UK prior to April 2011?
Sometimes, I wonder what kind of brains the people who make these rules/thier advisers have.
Before the elections, the Conservatives (and the media, e.g. Daily Mail) were trying REALLY hard to show how shockingly high the level of immigration was. Since they knew that in reality the net economic migrants numbers from outside the EU were in fact falling, they had to:
a) lump all students into immigrant category, and
b) count all extending their stay under Tier 1 and 2, and those switching into those categories from inside the country, into "new arrivals". This was the only way for them to make both "total immigration", and especially "net immigration", look high.
I know, this is a rather stupid policy to target existing visa holders in order to deal with new immigration, but this is in fact what they seem to be doing.