Highly-skilled ‘guest-workers’ in the UK: Implications for ‘citizenship’ in naturalisation policy and integration policy

Guestworker programmes have typically referred to programmes of a temporary nature, where guests are not integrated into the state, but are expected to leave (Hahamovitch, 2003). Critics argue that such programmes are discriminatory, and that long-term membership in a society should entitle such workers to the legal rights of membership, including citizenship (Carens, 2008). The UK's programme for highly-skilled migrants, introduced in 2008, is part of a five-tier points-based immigration system. It allows highly-skilled individuals to immigrate to the UK, initially for one year, without sponsorship from an employer, and on securing employment, this stay can be extended with subsequent entitlement to apply for British citizenship after five years. I examine the requirements and entitlements for these guestworkers, in relation to naturalisation and integration policy. I argue that a ‘moral’ conception of citizenship is invoked on economic grounds. Also, ‘integration’ is narrowly conceived in terms of the assumed unskilled or semi-skilled migrant's knowledge and skills ‘deficit’, rather than in terms of the integration of ‘highly-skilled’ guestworkers. Finally, I argue that methodologically, we cannot make judgements on either the economic validity, or the fairness of this programme without considering the managed migration system as a whole, integrated system of unskilled, semi-skilled as well as highly-skilled guestworkers.