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By OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT
London
Aug. 7: Campaign group HSMP Forum Ltd, which was successful in its legal challenge against retrospective application of tougher immigration rules for highly-skilled migrants, has warned the home office that it faces another legal challenge.
The campaign group has given the UK government 14-day deadline to take corrective measures over the April 2006 retrospective changes in the indefinite leave to remain qualifying criteria from four to five years for HSMP visa holders. The forum wrote to the home office that the said "letter was written pursuant to the judicial review pre-action protocol." Giving details, the letter said: "The essence of our complaint about the guidance is that the secretary of state has failed completely to deal in the guidance with the issue of the increase in the qualifying period for settlement from 4 to 5 years."
The campaign group’s contention is that the high court judgment, which ruled that retrospective changes made to the HSMP scheme in November 2006 were illegal, also covered the April 2006 changes.
In the letter to home secretary Jacqui Smith and the border and immigration agency, the forum wrote, "It is incumbent on the secretary of state to make provision so as to enable migrants who joined the scheme before April 2006 to apply for settlement after four years. This was very plainly a benefit of the scheme then in existence and there is no reason why provision ought not be made for such persons in the guidance."
The HSMP, which was superseded by the points-based system in 2008, allowed highly-skilled immigrants to enter Britain without an initial specific job offer. The scheme offered these migrants the prospect of the right to permanent residence in the UK after living and working in the country for a specific period. The home office in 2006 had twice changed the highly-skilled migrants programme regulations and applied them retrospectively to the visa holders already in Britain.