WIREDGOV

Visitors will now be fingerprinted and checked against watch-lists before being issued with a visa to travel. The new rules were introduced to counter passport and identity fraud, and follow Britain’s first global review of who needs a visa to come to the UK for a short-term visit.

Visa regimes for visitors have now been imposed on five new countries – Bolivia, Venezuela, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. This follows a global assessment by the Government of all non-European countries to determine the level of risk their citizens potentially pose to the UK in terms of illegal immigration, crime and security.

The roll out of these new regimes began earlier this year with all first-time visitors to the UK from South Africa requiring visas from 3 March, followed in May by the roll out to all visitors from Bolivia and Venezuela. Today marks the completion of this process with all visitors from South Africa, plus those coming from Lesotho and Swaziland, requiring visas to travel here.

Nationals from more than 100 countries now require a visa, and the UK Border Agency has already collected more than four million fingerprints from people applying for visas worldwide.

Border and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said:

"Already our shake-up of border security is delivering results, with fingerprint visas helping us catch thousands of people trying to hide their true identity or a criminal past.

"Today sees visa checks come into effect in the remaining countries that failed to pass our strict visa waiver test.
"I am determined that the UK Border Agency should continue to strengthen the border and 2009 is the year of delivery. As well as applying greater scrutiny to visitors, we are being more selective about who can work in the UK and coming down hard on rule breakers.”

The widening of the visa net was just one of a raft of measures the UK Border Agency committed to delivering in 2009. In February, the Home Secretary pledged to make a number of changes – and already many of these have successfully taken place.

A commitment to increase detention space saw the opening of the 426-bed immigration removal centre Brook House. This facility near Gatwick Airport will allow the Government to continue to remove record numbers of foreign lawbreakers from the UK – with the Government vowing to send home a further 5,800 by the end of this year.
By tightening the points based system the Government has ensured migration matches the country’s needs during these hard economic times. Employers must now advertise all skilled ‘tier 2’ jobs to resident workers through JobCentre Plus before they can bring people in from outside Europe.

The Government has also toughened the criteria against which highly skilled migrants seeking entry to the UK are judged - raising the qualifications and salary level required for highly skilled workers to a Masters degree and a minimum salary of £20,000.

The first six months of the year has also seen the creation of a multimillion pound fund to reduce the impacts of migration on local services, the rolling out of new technology to protect Britain’s border from smuggling and new rules to make it easier than ever to remove European criminals.


NOTES TO EDITORS

1. In March 2007, the Visa Waiver Test was announced as part of the ‘Securing the UK Border’ strategy.

2. In July 2008, 11 countries were named as needing to improve their security: Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. While some of these countries were able with the UK Border Agency’s help to mitigate the risks, it was decided visa regimes would be required in Bolivia, Venezuela, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland.

3. The UK Border Agency – which combined the Border and Immigration Agency, UK Visas and Customs at the border - sees 25,000 staff working across 135 countries. It was created in April 2008. So far the Agency has in 2008:

* barred over 28,000 illegal migrants from entering Britain at our juxtaposed controls – that’s almost 10,000 more than the whole of 2007
* enrolled over four million sets of fingerprints, detecting thousands of identity swaps;
* seized in excess of 900 million cigarettes - representing a potential loss of nearly £170 million in tax revenue;
* seized over £260 million worth of illegal drugs; and
* taken off the streets nearly 5,000 dangerous weapons, including firearms, stun guns and hundreds of knives, off the streets.
* Our new e-Borders system has checked over 92 million passenger movements, resulting in over 3,400 arrests for crimes such as murder, rape and assault and significant counter terrorist interventions.

4. The ten milestones in the UK Border Agency Delivery Plan for 2009 are:

· March - to open a new immigration removal centre to help remove immigration offenders;
· April - use our points system to ensure migration matches the country's needs in hard times;
· April - start charging migrants to create a multimillion pound fund to reduce the impacts of migration on local services;
· April - introduce new technology to help detect drugs and other illegal goods;
· May - be tougher on European criminals, removing European nationals who cause harm to our communities;
· July - start new visa controls, which will cover five countries;
· August - to complete delivery of new facial recognition technology in ten terminals giving British passengers a faster, secure route through the border;
· November - issue 75,000 compulsory ID cards to foreign nationals;
· December - hit target to screen 120 million passengers entering and leaving the UK against security watch-lists, and introduce a new high-tech security centre; and
· December - deport a record number of foreign prisoners.