Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has stressed the need to curb legal immigration, saying it can lead to “unmanageable pressures” on communities when it is “too high and too fast.”
The government has been under pressure to cut not only illegal immigration but also legal migration numbers.
He went on to say: “But it’s not just a question of legality. We can’t have uncontrolled legal migration either. That’s unfair too.
Student Visa Crackdown
Sunak’s comments come after the government announced new visa restrictions on dependents of international students.According to the Office of National Statistics, a significant factor behind the rise in net migration numbers in recent years has been an increase in foreign students and their dependents arriving.
Sunak wrote that the number of dependents arriving alongside international students is “staggering.”
“We have seen a more than eight-fold increase between 2019 and 2022, from 16,000 to 136,000—the vast majority of which accompany taught master’s students,” he said, adding, “The numbers suggest this might be being used by some as a loophole so we will close it.”
International students will also be prevented from switching out of the student visa route into work before their studies have been completed.
In addition, the government said it will review the funds students must have to demonstrate they can look after themselves and their dependents in the UK, as well as clamp down on “unscrupulous international student agents who may be supporting inappropriate applications.”
‘Simply Too High’
In his article, Sunak emphasised that the new measures are “not about being anti-immigrant.”He wrote: “No one could be prouder of our history of legal migration—from our place in the world as a sanctuary for the most in need to the generations of families who have come here, contributed here and made their home here. It’s a basic question of fairness and control. And I will always do what is fair and right. To me it is clear and unarguable: net migration is simply too high. I will bring it down.”
Commenting on student visas, Alp Mehmet, chairman of campaign group Migration Watch UK, said the current policy of allowing foreign postgraduate students to stay in the UK for two years after graduating is “a nonsense.”
He told Talk TV, “When we have the number of people who are looking for work or out of work, why don’t we try to persuade those back to work, rather than relying on this simply to help out struggling universities?”
Mehmet added that the government’s new measure is “sensible” but not enough.
He said: “Of course, it will help, and it’s the sensible, useful way of starting the whole process of reducing immigration, but it’s only part of the story. I’m afraid that foreign students, many of them, are using it as a means of coming to this country, working in this country and settling in this country, and that’s got to stop.”
