Highly skilled?

I had quite the scare the other day--I have to renew my UK work permit in a few months, so I went online to find out what I would need, and the website said the highly skilled migrant programme was closed!

Fortunately, it turned out they had just renamed the program (to "highly skilled worker" -- bureaucracy is truly universal) and the requirements to renew my permit were exactly the same as two years ago. Interestingly, though, for new permits they no longer accept bachelor's degrees--masters or phD only--so had I waited another year for the economy to recover, I wouldn't have been allowed to come at all.

Once I renew, I have another two years "leave to remain" (an interesting phrase), for a total of four years, but I have to be in the UK for five years before they'll grant me "indefinite leave" (the UK equivalent of a green card). Fortunately, last I checked, if I apply for indefinite leave at the end of the fourth year, they'll let me stay while it is considered.

More pressing, however: A mortgage lender told me I couldn't get a home loan unless I had at least two years leave to remain, which kind of makes sense. However, that means once my permit is renewed, I have a very small window to buy a house, or I have to wait another 3 years!

I used to listen--with a lot of sympathy and a great deal of outrage--to my friends about US immigration, and that was actually part of the motivation to move out of the US, to experience first-hand that bureaucracy and discrimination that comes from simply being born on a different spot of soil. Well, I've experienced a very mild form of it, and let me just say--it sucks.

P.S. I'm burning a Yahrzeit candle tonight in memory of my father, who would have been 75 this month. I love you and miss you, Dad.