UK Home Office Admits That Dozens of Skilled Workers Were Wrongly Denied Visas

The UK home office has admitted that there has been an error on its part while denying visas to dozens of skilled workers on the basis of a controversial clause that questions the character and conduct of the applicant.

Caroline Nokes, Minister of State for Immigration, issued an official statement in UK Parliament on Nov.22 in this regard while telling about a “review,” being published that day, of applications filed by Tier 1 (General) migrants.

The applications reviewed belonged to those general migrants who were refused under paragraph 322(5) of the Immigration Rules. This paragraph of Immigration Rules deals with a wide range of character and conduct issues while assessing the applicants.

She said that other than the cases of visa applicants, accepted by the courts, this review has identified 12 decisions, which the Home Office wants to overturn. She also said that in 19 other cases, more information will be sought from the applicants before reconsideration of their cases.

“The Home Office will contact each of the 31 individuals concerned to resolve their cases by the end of December. Errors of this kind are always regrettable, and I do not seek to minimize the impact that the error may have had on the individuals concerned,” said Nokes in her statement.

As per PTI report, a large number of applicants, being refused settlement rights over their perceived dishonesty in reporting their earnings, are from South Asia.

Some British MPs had claimed that minor mismatches between immigration documents submitted to the Home Office and tax information given to HM Revenue and Customs have led hundreds of skilled workers to face removal proceedings. After these claims, the UK government ordered a review into such applications, reported mirror.co.uk.

A total of 1,697 applications, refused since Jan.2015 were examined under this review. In 88% of cases (1,490), discrepancies found between the earnings declared to the Home Office and those shown in their tax records were over £10,000, says the minister’s statement at UK parliament’s website.

These applicants were given the chance to explain these discrepancies in their documents.

“In many cases, having taken all the evidence and applicants’ explanations into account, we were not satisfied that these were minor tax errors as claimed, but attempts to misrepresent self-employed earnings, most likely for the purposes of obtaining leave or settlement in the UK,” said Nokes.

She further said that skilled migrants make an important contribution to the country’s economic well-being and its society.

“UK Government recognizes the need to attract and retain them, and our immigration system will continue to do so. However, it is important that people play by the rules to preserve the integrity of the immigration system,” she added.