So UKBA's website has undergone some heavy information updates in the past month, changes which would invalidate my application if they were retroactive. For sanity's sake I can't believe they would try it, as I submitted my form a month before they told anybody anything about them, but the office trying to learn the new criteria and evaluate applications differently based on their submission date could delay things. I'm trying to keep a cool head. I still have 8 of 10 fingernails.
As of December 22, everyone who is applying for Tier 1 and Tier 4 visas must have a biometric residence permit. This is a big change, as when I applied for my Tier 4 (Student) in 2009 I was told not only that I should not apply for one, but that I couldn't have one. Moreover, only Tier 1 (General) applications needed one at the time, and my application is under Tier 1 (Post-Study Work), a completely different form and set of criteria. I mentioned a few posts back that there was a weird confusing page on the application regarding BRPs, and now I see why.
I've read news that UKBA seeks to do away with the post-study work visa, which exists to provide a route to work for non-EU graduates, but that they haven't done so quite yet. One of their representatives was quoted recently saying "The fact that you've taken a class here does not give you the right to settle here" which makes me feel all warm and cozy. The message to graduates is clear: we want your obscenely-inflated tuition fees. We don't want you. I feel used.
The thing that really irks me about this is that it is pathetically inconsistent. A high school dropout from Poland who speaks no English and only understands the rudiments of lawnmowing has more of a right to be here than a native English speaking American with a Master's degree. Under current laws no one from the EU has to do anything at all to get a legal job, settle his or her family and put the kids in school, or even claim unemployment benefits in the UK, but Americans who paid for the right to even apply to be here, were subjected to intense scrutiny and prodding as to the validity of their identities and courses, paid extortionate tuition fees contrasted with their EU classmates, worked hard to earn a high qualification, and clearly had to be able to afford to fly here 'cos we sure as hell couldn't pack grandma in the Chevy and drive across the Atlantic are told clearly and flatly, "get out."
I know there are jerks out there who make up phony universities to provide an entry route to otherwise-unqualified migrants who just want to loaf around here. I realize that every country has its fill of useless freeloaders and shouldn't be obligated to take on other countries' bums. I know the standard of living is pretty attractive here, but the country can't afford to pay for every Joe Blow to mooch off its socialized services. I'm not that obtuse.
But eliminating the Post-Study Work Visa won't help you whittle down the number of bums who wind up here. Indeed, the whole reason the visa programme was developed was to ensure that only useful, qualified graduates could stay. I had to provide detailed letters from my school to prove I'd earned a real MA from a real, accredited university while here on a valid student visa. If a certificate of completion from Joe's Diploma Mill is making the cut it is a sign that you need to perform some internal corruption sweeps, not take away career opportunities from the highly-educated graduates your business community needs and your internal revenue service would appreciate. There are probably some highly-educated foreign graduates of British universities who could help you make them.
I'm not going to try and tell anyone what their laws should be, but I do believe the laws a country creates must be enforced fairly. If I'm not welcome, then Piotr shouldn't be either.
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There's a problem in the US right now where foreign students -- particularly from India -- come in, get a high-level engineering degree at a good university, and go home to use the knowledge to the benefit of their home country. I don't have a problem with this personally, but it is seen as a problem. Immigration from Mexico which provides cheap labor is also a nice conservative talking point.
It seems like the UK is going in the opposite direction. They're kicking out smart foreigners who want to stay and repay some debt, but they're willing to take cheap labor wherever it comes from. I'm not sure which is better. They both seem really exploitative.
I think you've nailed what struck me as so odd about the whole situation--the fact that it's a complete reversal of what the US seems to be up to. It just seems so backward to me, I guess because I'm just used to America wanting to keep manual labour cheap by making it "illegal" and preventing immigrants from receiving the minimum wage, insurance, and other benefits that residency would afford them, but never wanting to pass up all those fresh new tech-savvy graduates. England instead invites in expensive manual labourers, who don't pay much in tax, and turns away taxable high-earning graduates. Perhaps this is more generous, but a pragmatist I can't help but think the UK is shooting itself in the foot.
Well, part of the argument with cheap laborers in the US is that they're actually more expensive than they're worth -- for one thing, Mexican laborers in particular are able to easily send home part of their earnings to Mexico, to their families or extended families. This hasn't been true of other immigrant groups, like the Irish or the Chinese, who had to cross oceans at quite a cost, and either left family behind or brought them with. So money is leaving the US -- not at a high rate, but leaving even so. And, when they have to get health care, like so many of us who are uninsured, they have to go to the emergency room at the last minute, and then have to use government subsidies to cover their medical costs. Obviously this is more a problem with the high cost of medical insurance that limits all residents' medical coverage, and not a problem of immigrants, but idiots in places like Arizona like to point fingers at immigrants and say it's mostly their fault.
I would assume part of the "backwardness" of the UK stems from their National Health Service. Everyone is covered, whether you're a resident or not. So in order to keep the costs down, I would assume it behooves them to cover the largest group of immigrants, which would be unskilled workers and not college grads, and that would mean making them citizens. It also means they can more easily bring their families, who will also eventually be wage earners and therefore taxable -- college grads have not often started families during graduate school, or are JUST starting them, which makes them more expensive. And also an easier money pit to cover up. It probably looks like burning money to us, but I assume in the long run it's not. Or, they don't see it as expensive and we do, and in actuality both systems are completely fucking broken.
I don't know. Being a cynic I'm leaning toward the idea that we're both broken.
I think they are both broken, but the price per capita to the government here for health care is significantly lower than in the US, mostly because they refuse to play along when pharmaceutical and hospital gadgetry companies try to charge outlandish prices for life-saving products. In the UK they either sell at cost (which works out to most UK residents paying £7.20 per prescription, unless even at that price it's too expensive (for instance, for long-term care that requires a daily pill salad) at which point you sign a few forms and it's free.), they don't use it, or if it's vital new medicine, they just say "gimme" and somehow force reasonably-priced sales. Because apparently it's better for pharmaceutical companies to sell to the UK for cheap than to not sell to the UK at all. Also doctors and nurses are paid a living wage but generally not the yacht-and-chalet fees Americans can get away with. It is also illegal (I've heard, I think) to publicly advertise for any form of medicine here, so while morons are more likely to use Nurofen-brand Ibuprofen over the generic because it has "Targeted pain relief" written on the box, Brits generally don't rush to their doctors and demand Paxil because the ad said it would make them happy.
The UK does have some cost-cutting hospital practices that I find strange--for instance, women are encouraged to give birth at home with a midwife or doula (if it looks like it'll be straightforward) but if things go wrong they usually have to rush the woman to the nearest hospital at ridiculous expense. They also provide ultra-basic services at GPs--cold/flu, introductory level diagnosis, etc--but when it comes to anything more advanced than a tickly throat you have to be referred to the big huge hospital in your borough. So the outpatient centres are massively overcrowded, and Every time I go there to get a simple blood test I go home with a cold. A larger number of smaller, purpose-established clinics for common outpatient services--dermatology, pre-natal, pediatrics, cardiology, EENT, etc. would save so many people from contracting new illnesses in the combined Rare Tropical Diseases, Bowel Disorders, and Podiatry waiting room.
I think in many ways the UK just didn't really understand what they were getting themselves into when they signed up to be a quasi-member of the EU. Interestingly, I've read recently that Polish immigration is actually on the decrease, and there seems to be a high amount of return traffic to there because their economy is picking up and people want to go home. That's nice. One day I'd like to want to go back to the US. But not until the Republicans stop trying to make the US a third world theocracy. But it is refreshing to learn that people really do value their roots and would love to be in their home countries, if only their governments stopped being dicks.
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