Court win for migrant workers fighting new rules

Published on Tuesday 8 April 2008 22:41

HIGHLY skilled migrants who came to Britain to start new lives yesterday won a legal victory overturning tough new government immigration rules they feared could ruin their future.

They were granted a High Court declaration that retrospective changes to the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) were unfair and unlawful.

The Home Office said the changes were necessary as the previous rules were "not sufficiently rigorous to select those migrants who were making the greatest economic contribution to the UK".

It claimed that some people already on the programme "were simply not doing highly skilled work".

But yesterday High Court judge Sir George Newman allowed a challenge by the campaign group HSMP Forum and ruled: "Not to restrain the impact of the changes would, in my judgment, give rise to conspicuous unfairness and an abuse of power."

Critics claimed that tens of thousands of migrants who came to work in the UK under the scheme faced being forced to leave because they would have to reapply under a new, stricter system.

They argued many faced the prospect of deportation with their families, despite having made their main home in Britain.

The government contended the numbers affected were "very small".

The programme was introduced in 2002 to attract highly skilled people to the UK and encouraged them to settle here. The changes were made in November 2006.