5 years for ILR rule implemented

[nonothing]

I only have two minor comments. Firstly, the main articulated appeal of this letter (stated in the last paragraph) is for the MPs to sign the EDMs. However, I believe that at this stage there's much more that MPs can do about that. Moreover, the EDMs call for the disapproval of the changes, whereas we only clearly ask for introduction of provisional arrangements "on top of them". So I think we should say something like "we ask you to sign the EDM or contribute in any other way you consider most efficient efficient in order for the transitional arrangements to be introduced".

Secondly, I find that the letter might benefit from adding our response to main McNulty's comments to "supplementary information". You could take it from my draft of a letter to Tony Blair that I posted as a separate topic on this forum.

thanks a lot for your tremendous support, a11. your suggestion and letter have been forwarded to VBSI's writing team.

[supertiger]

1. Why don’t VBSI collect a membership fee (already >280 members), I hope everyone would be happy to contribute. Just send a PM to all member with VBSI’s account details. This is apart from donation.

where did u see >280 members?

membership fee sounds very compulsory may keep some people out or demotivate some people at least. but i think donation is more suitable at this stage.

[a11]

Received a second reply from my MP Andrew Slaughter (Labour), this time by paper mail. The first one was by email, in reply to my request to sign EDM 1912, in which he was saying that he could not sign EDMs due to his parliamentary position.

The reply I received today apparently refers to my previous email to him which I wrote before the EDM campaign had started. Here's what he wrote:

"Thank you for your letter asking for assistance with your IND application. I have written to the Home Office on your behalf and asked them to deal with the issues you raise. The Home Office will usually reply to my enquiries within twenty working days.

I will write to you when I receive a reply from the Home Office.

In the unlikely event that you have not heard from me two months after the date of this letter, please write to my Westminster office so that we may give a progress report.

Please note there is no need to ring my office for "progress reports" as my staff will contact you as soon as there is anything to tell you. In most cases, I will be able to give you news in four weeks.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Slaughter MP"

[PASS]

http://basicpoll.com/result/22044/

All those voted as affected are to be considered as ready to contribute

1. Why don’t VBSI collect a membership fee (already >280 members), I hope everyone would be happy to contribute. Just send a PM to all member with VBSI’s account details. This is apart from donation.

where did u see >280 members?

membership fee sounds very compulsory may keep some people out or demotivate some people at least. but i think donation is more suitable at this stage.

[Hidden dragon]

Thank you all for your support to VBSI. Some Q&As that might interest you:

(1) Q: Does VBSI need help?
A: Yes. VBSI indeed needs donation, volunteers and members. These are essential for any organisation to survive and win a battle.

(2) Q: So why hasn't VBSI started to receive donation?
A: VBSI feel it important to have a very transparent system in place for the management and deployment of funds. Many campaigns fail due to mis-management of funds. We are working on it at this moment.

(3) Q: So why hasn't VBSI produced a system for absorbing new members?
A: For the similar reason, VBSI needs time to establish a system which will enable every member and volunteer to work in an organised and coherent way. No one want to waste his/her time due to lack of coordination.

(4) Q: I sent email to info@vbsi.org.uk but got no reply yet, why?
A: We replied some of you who volunteered to work for VBSI. Thank you! But due to lack of human resource, we have not replied all of you. We apologize for this. The reason was given in (3), and please read on.

(5) The conclusion
There will be the time (hopefully soon) to come when VBSI ask for your help in terms of action, time and funds. I hope you can bear with us for a while until we produce the proper methods for doing so.

If you want to help, please keep sending emails to us and we WILL contact you in due course!

PLEASE REMEMBER, VBSI ALWAYS NEEDS YOU, BECAUSE YOU ARE THE VBSI.

[Hidden dragon]

I thank "aj77", "a11", "tobiashomer", "G M" and many other people for their contribution to the letter.

I thank all of you who pointed out errors and English problems on the VBSI website too.

[a11]

You are welcome )

I just re-read the draft of the letter posted on the website and realised I have two more concerns (in addition to those which I talked about earlier and which nonothing said he had forwarded to the writing team):

1) It is not very clear from the letter what status VBSI has and on whose behalf it acts. I believe that for the politicians these questions will be the first to come to mind.
As for the status, this is quite easy: VBSI is a non-profit organization (or association) and I think it should be introduced as such in the letter.
As for the 'on whose behalf' part, this is trickier. How many people are going to sign this letter? I understand it is not proposed as a public petition. In this case, one way is to state rather vaguely that VBSI has been formed to protect the rights of work-related migrant categories. However, this might not be enough. They might think: what if VSBI is just a bunch of 'extremists' bearing no connection with the majority of skilled migrants.
So perhaps we should read what the British law is saying about non-profit associations aimed at protecting certain social groups and try to use appropriate wording to sound professional and convincing. Or maybe even better, speak to some trained solicitors (e.g., from CL's team?)

2) I suggest that instead of disapproval of the new changes (a gross thing!) we ask for better transitional arrangements allowing those remaining in the country to apply for the ILR as per old rules. I believe that this would me mucg easier to implement than calling the new rules off. If you agree than this should be reflected in the title of the letter as well as in its last paragraph.

Finally, this is not about the letter itself, but I just wanted to point out that we should be prepared for that some MPs and HO officials will (thankfully) want to visit the VBSI website. And if so, I believe they will be disappointed to read that the letter they received is aimed to 'flood' the parliament and to 'pile further pressure' on the Home Office (even though both statements are true). In other words, I think the website would benefit from a little bit more "politically correct" style.

[nonothing]

a11, i believe your suggestions are precious from VBSI team, which i've forwarded to them. cheers.

[supertiger]

News on the 5 illegal immigrants working HO again, seems they really had been working for 3 years no like what they claimed earlier found at beginning, John Reid has misled the public again...

[nonothing]

Immigration Minister Tony McNulty has said it may take 10 years to deport all illegal immigrants living in the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4992298.stm

but it only took 3 weeks from announcing a retrospective change to it coming into effect.

[nonothing]

How should illegal immigration be monitored?
What can be done to track illegal immigrants within the UK?

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread. ... #paginator

[cantab]

Rt Hon Keith Hill, MP for stretham has written to the home office (McNulty) regarding the retrospective change as well.

i still think that a court case is the best bet.

is anyone in touch with LIBERTY, run by Shami Chakrabarti? it is the largest UK civil liberties group. i am a member of the group, and will write to them too.

also will contribute to VBSI, of course.

[BadPaul]

I wrote to Liberty, they replied 3 weeks later saying there is little they can do, as they are a small organization with little capacity to take on individual cases.

If VBSI writes to them it might be a different story

[rg1]

It affects thousands of people! So, its not just individual cases!
Anyway, we have to act very quick... now immigration is hot topic everywhere....

Kudos to VBSI guys.... you're doing wonderful jobs.

[nonothing]

guys, who knows the whole history of the application (WP, HSMP, ILR, FLR, etc) fees rise during the past 9 years? or maybe someone can give me a clue where i can find it? cheers.

[rooi_ding]

Tony McNulty is gone he has been replaced by Liam Byrne

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5006126.stm

[no-w-here]

'tough guy' has been kicked out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5006126.stm

[nonothing]

should CC and TM go 2-3 months earlier, we could have different fortune.

[BadPaul]

Immigration is hot topic in the press, perhaps we should use the momentum and get newspapers / TV stations interested in our battle, I am sure they will be happy to pick up on another Home Office subject.

I know a Programme Director on ITV, I will talk to him this week and try to convince him that our case is worth a few minutes on the news.

Also, shall we all write to Liam Byrne ? Perhaps he will be interested to do something different than his predecessors, at some point in time he will need good news and perhaps we should let him know that by not changing the rules, he will have yet another bad news on Home Office soon.

Finally, I like the idea of voluntary contributions to VBSI, can we set this up quickly? I will definitely make a contribution, you cannot fight a battle without money.

[supertiger]

I got the third letter from my MP Susan Kramer today. She stated that she has signed EDM in the letter dated 16th May but I cannot see it on the parliament website yet... there might be a delay between MP signing EDM and info updated? I don;t know about it but as she said she has signed, I believe that she should have already done so. I will keep checking the EDM page for any updates. Below is her reply:


*********************

Thank you for your recent email to me of the 10th May, regarding your ongoing concerns over the retrospective change recently made to the qualifing period for ILR within the UK.

As I stated in my last letter to you, I fully share your concerns over this measure and am pleased to inform you that I have now signed EDM 1992 which calls for the disproval to this change.

i will of course strive to keep you updated on any further developments on this front as and when they occur, but in the meantime, if I can be of assistance to you with regard to any other issues, then please don;t hesitate to let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Susan Kramer

[likewise]

This is probably not the best time to let the media know, the current situation can cause some unpredictable collateral damage to us.
and no need to theaten, if they saw the facts, they should be able to make the right judgement

Immigration is hot topic in the press, perhaps we should use the momentum and get newspapers / TV stations interested in our battle, I am sure they will be happy to pick up on another Home Office subject.

I know a Programme Director on ITV, I will talk to him this week and try to convince him that our case is worth a few minutes on the news.

Also, shall we all write to Liam Byrne ? Perhaps he will be interested to do something different than his predecessors, at some point in time he will need good news and perhaps we should let him know that by not changing the rules, he will have yet another bad news on Home Office soon.

Finally, I like the idea of voluntary contributions to VBSI, can we set this up quickly? I will definitely make a contribution, you cannot fight a battle without money.

[morerightsformigrants]

i agree at the moment the public feels that immigrants are a threat to their country, even though we are partly responsible for keeping this country's economy growing.

This is probably not the best time to let the media know, the current situation can cause some unpredictable collateral damage to us.
and no need to theaten, if they saw the facts, they should be able to make the right judgement

Immigration is hot topic in the press, perhaps we should use the momentum and get newspapers / TV stations interested in our battle, I am sure they will be happy to pick up on another Home Office subject.

I know a Programme Director on ITV, I will talk to him this week and try to convince him that our case is worth a few minutes on the news.

Also, shall we all write to Liam Byrne ? Perhaps he will be interested to do something different than his predecessors, at some point in time he will need good news and perhaps we should let him know that by not changing the rules, he will have yet another bad news on Home Office soon.

Finally, I like the idea of voluntary contributions to VBSI, can we set this up quickly? I will definitely make a contribution, you cannot fight a battle without money.

[supertiger]

This is probably not the best time to let the media know, the current situation can cause some unpredictable collateral damage to us.
and no need to theaten, if they saw the facts, they should be able to make the right judgement

why not good time? HO set criminals free, made innocent criminal record, employed illgal immigrants and punished legal immigrants... this cannot be a better time to show their misconduct. I agree no need to threaten them, nothing we can threaten really. But as long as we can make the media report in a RIGHT way we should take every opportunity. we have been trying hard to attract their attention but nobody cared. let's see this time.

[supertiger]

i agree at the moment the public feels that immigrants are a threat to their country, even though we are partly responsible for keeping this country's economy growing.

In this conservative country people normally don't like immigrants, most news on this issue is negative. we do need to be careful but I think timewise is not bad. I cannot think what can be a best time... any footballer is an immigrant in England team?

[likewise]

yesterday I might agree with you, but now something has changed

This is probably not the best time to let the media know, the current situation can cause some unpredictable collateral damage to us.
and no need to theaten, if they saw the facts, they should be able to make the right judgement

why not good time? HO set criminals free, made innocent criminal record, used illgal immigrants and punished legal immigrants... this cannot be a better time to show their misconduct. I agree no need to threaten them, nothing we can threaten really. But as long as we can make the media report in a RIGHT way we should take every opportunity. we have been trying hard to attract their attraction but nobody cared. let's see this time.