The United Kingdom has indicated plans to stop some foreign students from bringing their family members into the country.
The move is part of an immigration crackdown reportedly in the works, with official figures out this Thursday expected to show that net migration has rocketed to one million.
“A string of alarmed Tory MPs have broken cover to call for Rishi Sunak to get a grip on the rocketing numbers,” The Sun UK revealed in a report on Saturday.
“Scrambling to get ahead of the bad news, ministers are expected to announce the immigration clampdown on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
According to the report, the crackdown will see “all master’s students and many other postgraduate students” banned from bringing family over.
“The ban will not apply to PHD students, whose courses usually last between 3 and 5 years and are very highly skilled,” it added.
Immigration figures point to an “explosion” in the number of people relocating to Britain on the privilege of their relatives’ student visas.
A total of 135,788 family members reportedly tagged along as students moved into Britain for study last year — nine times more than in 2019.
“Last year, 59,053 Nigerian students brought over 60,923 relatives,” the report noted.
The long-awaited ban comes a month after the UK stopped “active recruitment” of skilled and experienced health and social care personnel from Nigeria and 53 other countries globally, mostly African nations.
In its updated ‘Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Health and Social Care Personnel in England’, the UK placed Nigeria and the other countries on its red list,” which was based on the World Health Organization Workforce Support and Safeguard List, 2023.
(omayowa@globalfinancialdigest.com; Newsroom: +234 8033 964 138)
