Sponsors of Migrants – Border Agency issues new guidance for employers and education providers

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On 5 October, the UK Border Agency published revised guidance for employers and education providers who sponsor migrants under the points-based system for immigration, and has enabled education providers to use the sponsorship management system for the first time.

The sponsor guidance has now been split into separate documents for employers (Tiers 2 and 5 of the points-based system) and for education providers (Tier 4).  Both guidance documents, together with a list of changes from the previous guidance, can be downloaded at the link below.

At the same time, the UK Border Agency also implemented phase 3 of Tier 4 of the points-based system.  Phase 3 is the voluntary trial period of the sponsorship management system (SMS) for Tier 4 sponsors, enabling them to issue confirmations of acceptance for studies (CAS) for the first time.  During a voluntary trial period which will run until February 2010, sponsors will be able to issue CAS, visa letters or a combination of both to would-be students who are applying for a visa from within the United Kingdom.

Visa letters will be completely replaced by CAS in February 2010.  Until then, would-be students applying from outside the UK will still need to apply with a visa letter until February 2010.

Further information:

Points-based system: guidance for employers and sponsors

Sponsorship management system is launched for Tier 4 sponsors

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 09:28 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.