Team Blitz India
LONDON: The UK government has announced a new immigration crackdown targeted at overseas students, including Indians, and their visa right to bring dependant family members to the country while enrolled at a British institution.
In a written statement to the House of Commons, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said on May 23 that only international students on postgraduate courses currently designated as research programmes will be allowed to bring in their family members, including children and elderly parents, as their dependants.
The Indian-origin minister said the new package of measures was necessary after it emerged that around 136,000 visas were granted to dependants of sponsored students in the year ending December 2022 a more than eight-fold increase from 16,000 in 2019.
This package includes removing the right for international students to bring dependants unless they are on postgraduate courses currently designated as research programmes, Braverman’s statement notes.
The crackdown was widely expected as reports indicated that the UK’s latest net migration figures to be released later this week will show a massive rise from 504,000 between June 2021 and 2022 despite a Conservative Party-led government pledge to bring down immigration in the wake of Brexit.
In terms of the number of dependants accompanying these students, Nigerians rank the highest followed by Indians.
