Gentle Reminder: Citizenship Review

Just a gentle reminder...

Definitely those who are comming in under the new managed migration scheme, and *some* of those comming in as fiances and spouses will be affected by Lord Goldsmith's Citizenship Review, which is due to be laid before the Government next March.

What this means is that they are going to change the definition of "British citizen", and then change the requirements accordingly. 

A part of the new requirements is quite likely to be some form of "earned citizenship", which means community service and/or other volunteer duty in the interest of the public welfare.

At UKY, we have a dim view on "earned citizenship" because much of the constituency here are young parents raising a family.  And we can't be doing with homemakers being denied citizenship because they were raising their children instead of doing community service.

They will also be looking at leveling up residency requirements for spouses.  Right now it's three years.

We don't know the extent to which Lord Goldsmith's review will ultimately be enacted, but for sure it's time to sit up and take notice while the review is still in the formulation stage.  The ILPA draft response is what's taking up my time recently, and please note that the Advocacy Team at UKY may be back (once again) asking you to write to your MP's in protest.

Eyes wide, peeps.

Thanks for the heads up.

I was so hoping I could make it through to 2009 without any further changes, but clearly that is just wishful thinking. I'm still crossing my fingers, though.

Thanks for the heads up.  I remember the community service being mentioned when it came to the fee changes.  According to the letter I got sent back from my MP (written by another MP's little lackey) it said that the community service was an idea of Gordon Brown's...   

On another note , I know you mentioned you don't know to what extent these changes will be, but do you know where can we look for updates or "ammendments" at this time?

I just found this, and have bookmarked it:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/reviews/citizenship.htm

Thank you for the info Kate!  Sounds good that they'll be doing monthly updates in the meantime.     Hopefully we can get a better picture of what'll end up happening beforehand...

Just to add...

The Marriage Consultation has introduced the notion of revoking someone's immigration status if they have left their partner/sponsor...

EVEN IF THEY HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED SETTLEMENT! 

No time limit.  That one is deeply worrying. 

I'll be working on that one with ILPA, but the Advocacy Team may be giving a separate response for UKY.

So, when does the letter-writing campaign start?  Yet another thing to raise my blood pressure...

Just to add...

The Marriage Consultation has introduced the notion of revoking someone's immigration status if they have left their partner/sponsor...

EVEN IF THEY HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED SETTLEMENT! 

No time limit.  That one is deeply worrying. 

I'll be working on that one with ILPA, but the Advocacy Team may be giving a separate response for UKY.

What about widows/widowers?  I hate to sound alarmist, but to me that sounds like the next logical step.

I will definitely put pen to paper when we start writing letters, and my husband said he will too.

Just to add...

The Marriage Consultation has introduced the notion of revoking someone's immigration status if they have left their partner/sponsor...

EVEN IF THEY HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED SETTLEMENT! 

No time limit.  That one is deeply worrying. 

I'll be working on that one with ILPA, but the Advocacy Team may be giving a separate response for UKY.

so in other words..if  a woman or  a man, is in a marriage that turns abusive or even if their partner constantly cheats on them.......they will feel like they are forced to put up with it and stay in the marriage, in fear that they will be deported back to somewhere they havent lived in years and have nothing there ..........oh how lovely

Thanks for the heads up.

I was so hoping I could make it through to 2009 without any further changes, but clearly that is just wishful thinking. I'm still crossing my fingers, though.

Me too.  Doesn't look like we will be too fortunate.

I guess I can at least be happy that I got my FLR before the fees went up.

I go for ILR in Oct. 2008.

Depending on the new changes and charges, I will seriously question getting citizenship.
My concern now is what to do about my US passport, as I have not changed my name on it yet (it expires in 2012) and I was going to just hold out to do so until I got citizenship, and didn't have to worry about paying to have the visa transferred. Now I might look into trying to get it done before I apply for ILR.

Jeeze, I am happy I have finally decided to apply for naturalization next month.

Ugh, I really feel like I can't catch a break here. I was affected by that (possibly illegal) 4-to-5 year ILR change (to the tune of an extra year, several hundred pounds, and a Life in the UK test) and now they want to change the hurdles on me AGAIN? I just feel like I'm being told one thing, working towards it, only to have the government change the posts yet again at the very last second. I thought that by getting ILR I'd be safe from all this. I'm really, really disgusted.

fair enough if they wanted to extended the residency requirement for the british passport.
but community service?
eh?
is it like ppl who come here stay at home ,  dont have jobs and dont have families to look after? i dont get it. so will they be ready to give  us compensation for the days when we dont go to work and to get child minders etc so we can do the community service?
we are already serving the community by having jobs,  working and paying taxes and contributing as much as we can. or am being illogical/??
i hope its not as bad as i am thinking. 

i think that they are so upset with eu immigrants who keep on coming here and  they have no control over and cant stop them, so they decided to  have control over non-eu immigrants cos its the easiest. that explains it.