According to a news update on the UK’s Border and Immigration Agency website today, the UK has given 11 countries, South Africa being one of them, until the end of the year to convince the UK why they should not impose stricter visa regulations on them.

For months the UK has been working on imposing stricter visa regulations and tightening their immigration system to decrease abuse of the system and to increase the flow of needed and sought after migrants into their country.

The changes implemented have included the introduction of dedicated Visa Facilitation Service offices around the world (4 in SA) that have been tasked with the role of collating the biometric date of all visa applicants.

According to the BIA website, this implementation has resulted in the collection of 2 million sets of fingerprints and also brought to light nearly ‘…3000 attempted identity swaps’, which has proved the system infinitely valuable in the strengthening of the UK’s borders.

At the end of June 2008 the UK introduced the first in its new ‘Tier’ immigration system (which works on a points based system similar to that used successfully by Australia) by implementing the new Tier 1 scheme and removing, amongst other visas, the HSMP, the Fresh Talent Working in Scotland Scheme, the International Graduate Scheme, Business Persons and Innovators.

It seems that the latest in their immigration clean up is the warning of requiring individuals from these 11 countries to apply for a visa to even visit this UK – thus increasing the amount of biometric data collected and decreasing the level of fraudulent activities, whilst at the same time increasing costs and drastically reducing free movement between SA and the UK.

The UK has undertaken a Visa Waiver Test against all non-European countries and reviewed them according to the levels of risk they pose to the UK in terms of illegal immigration, crime, security, etc. The results of this test have sadly shown that SA, along with the 10 other listed countries, show a strong case for the implementation of these visa regimes against them.

In order for SA not to be a part of this new visa regime they will have to show the UK government, over the next 6 months, what they can do and will do to reduce the level of risk they pose to the UK in relation to these criteria.

Border and Immigration Minister Mr Liam Byrne said:

‘The Government will now work with these countries over the next six months to reduce the risk they pose. If they are able to show evidence of change there will be no need to introduce a visa regime. No final decisions will be made until early 2009.’