Global immigration news round-up

10.10.2024

This week, the Global Immigration team at Smith Stone Walters would like to highlight the following recent updates from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark and the United States.

Australia: New work and holiday visa ballots

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has noted that, on 1 October 2024, a pre-application process (visa ballot) commenced under the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program.

Visa ballot registrations opened for the following high-demand Work and Holiday (subclass 462) countries:

China
India
Vietnam.

Visa ballots are used to randomly select first Work and Holiday applicants from partner countries where demand exceeds the number of places available in a program year.

DHA will conduct random selections of registrations over program year 2024-25, then will notify those randomly selected by email and instruct them to apply for a first Work and Holiday visa online.

Applicants will need to meet all the standard eligibility requirements of the subclass 462 visa to be granted entry into Australia.

Canada: Further changes to Temporary Foreign Worker Program

On 1 October 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced that the federal government has reached an agreement with the Government of Yukon to help certain temporary workers in the territory eventually become permanent residents.

This temporary measure will give new work permits to up to 215 temporary workers identified and supported by the Government of Yukon to continue working while they process their permanent residence applications under the Yukon Nominee Program. Eligible individuals have to demonstrate that they meet the criteria and are expected to transition to permanent residence in 2025 and 2026. These skilled workers are filling key job vacancies in Yukon and are actively contributing to Canada’s economy and social diversity.

To date, IRCC has worked with Alberta, Manitoba and Yukon to implement this measure in those jurisdictions.

China: Visa-free travel for nationals of Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Slovenia

The Foreign Ministry has announced that China will implement a visa-free policy for citizens of Denmark, as well as for citizens of Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Slovenia to further facilitate personnel exchanges between China and those countries.

Effective 15 October 2024 to 31 December 2025, holders of ordinary passports from these European countries will be eligible for a visa exemption policy when traveling to China for purposes such as business, tourism, visiting relatives or transit for up to 15 days.

Earlier in 2024, similar unilateral visa-free deals were given to citizens of Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand; and Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Switzerland.

Denmark: Updated procedure for assessing salary offers

On 27 September 2024, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) published an updated version of the practice note that is used to assess whether an offered salary in certain work cases corresponds to Danish standards.

In March 2022, SIRI published a note concerning SIRI’s practices concerning the assessment of Danish standards for salary. Since then, the note has been the basis for SIRI’s assessment of questions concerning the Danish standards for salary, in terms of certain work schemes.

The practice note has been updated, among other things, because the Supplementary Pay Limit Scheme and the Fast-track Scheme’s supplementary pay limit track have been added to the work schemes since the last practice note.

The updated version of the practice note covers cases under the Pay Limit Scheme as well as the Supplementary Pay Limit Scheme, the five tracks of the Fast-track Scheme, the Researcher Scheme, the Positive List for People with a Higher Education and Work permits for accompanying family members.

As the practice note states, SIRI will generally not assess whether an offered salary corresponds to Danish standards within cases where the employment is covered by a collective agreement. Within the cases where the employer is a member of an Employer’s organisation, SIRI will assess whether an offered salary corresponds to Danish standards up until the level just above the regular pay limit. Within additional cases, SIRI will generally always assess whether an offered salary corresponds to Danish standards.

In cases where SIRI assesses whether the salary corresponds to Danish standards, they will also assess whether the other material terms of employment corresponds to Danish standards.

The practice note applies from 27 September 2024, and also applies to the processing of applications already submitted.

For the work schemes that are not covered by the practice note, the assessment of whether an offered salary corresponds to Danish standards can be found on newtodenmark.com under the individual schemes.

United States: USCIS Issues New Guidance on EB-1 Eligibility Criteria for Individuals with Extraordinary Ability

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is issuing policy guidance in its Policy Manual to further clarify the types of evidence that may be evaluated to determine eligibility for extraordinary ability (E11) EB-1 immigrant visa classifications.

This policy guidance:

Confirms that USCIS considers a person’s receipt of team awards under the criterion for lesser nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavour;
Clarifies that USCIS considers past memberships under the membership criterion;
Removes language suggesting published material must demonstrate the value of the person’s work and contributions to satisfy the published material criterion; and
Explains that while the dictionary defines an “exhibition” as a public showing not limited to art, the relevant regulation expressly modifies that term with “artistic,” such that we will only consider non-artistic exhibitions as part of a properly supported claim of comparable evidence.

This new guidance builds on a previous EB-1 policy update, providing more clarity and transparency to assist petitioners in submitting appropriate evidence that may establish the beneficiary’s eligibility.

This policy update is effective immediately and is controlling and supersedes any related prior guidance on the topic. For more information, see the Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part F, Chapter 2.