The electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme could create a ‘plethora’ of visa refusal cases on the basis of criminality or previous immigration history, an immigration lawyer has warned
The government set out its implementation dates last week for ETAs, which are digitally linked to visitors’ passports—8 January 2025 for non-Europeans and 2 April 2025 for Europeans. The Home Office expects up to 30 million ETA applications per year.
Katie Newbury, partner, Kingsley Napley, said: ‘The UK has a particularly inflexible and strict approach to historic criminal convictions and it is likely that some who have previously visited the UK without issue will in future find themselves refused an ETA.
‘There are real concerns around the capacity of UK Home Office staff to deal with this additional case load and we also expect litigation to flow from Home Office decisions as there is currently no right of appeal against refusal of a visit visa.’
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