London: A group representing Indian and non-European Union highly skilled migrants has threatened legal action against retrospective provisions in a new immigration bill currently working its way through the British parliament.
The Highly Skilled Migrants Forum on Saturday said the Labour government faced a wave of legal challenges to its new immigration and citizenship bill, which allegedly ignored High Court rulings that the Home Office cannot change rules for migrants already living in Britain.
The HSMP Forum has won two landmark judicial review cases where the Home Office was ordered to honour the original terms of migrants' visas after it tried to alter them retrospectively.
The government's legal fees ran into tens of thousands of pounds and analysts say it now faces individuals' compensation claims that could be in millions.
"Yet Ministers Jacqui Smith and Liam Byrne are determined to press ahead with the new Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill, which tries the same thing all over again," Amit Kapadia of the campaign group said.
Among many discriminatory provisions, the new bill retrospectively lengthens the waiting period for citizenship to eight years.