“The significant rise in students bringing family members is putting untenable pressure on public services. Tightening the student route will help to cut migration by restricting post-graduate students from bringing dependents or using the route as a backdoor to work.”
— Suella Braverman, UK Home Secretary
In a bid to curb net migration in the United Kingdom, the Rishi Sunak government has decided to tighten the visa rules. UK Home Secretary announced policy changes that include putting a ban on overseas students from bringing dependents to the country and removing the ability for international students to switch to work visas before finishing their courses, reported Mint.
Speaking about the policy changes, Braverman later tweeted, “The significant rise in students bringing family members is putting untenable pressure on public services. Tightening the student route will help to cut migration by restricting post-graduate students from bringing dependents or using the route as a backdoor to work.”
The measure to tighten immigration was put in place to pre-empt figures released on May 25 ywhich show that in the year to December 2022, net migration in the UK rose to a record level of 606,000.
“It may not drastically impact the international student community as most international students are aged between 18 to 25 years.”
— Ajay Sharma, Founder and President – Abhinav Immigration Services
Many politicians and UK citizens believe the current migration figure is too high and the ruling Conservative Party has given a manifesto pledge to reduce these numbers significantly, Yash Dubal, director of A Y & J Solicitors, said: “There will be a general election in the UK next year and the Conservatives are currently trailing in the polls and could lose power, so the decision to ban dependents of students is political.”
In 2022 a total of 135,788 visas granted were to dependents of students. A significant number of these were from India as nearly 118,000 Indian students received a Student visa in the year ending June 2022 – an 89% increase from 2021.
Surely the policy changes are likely to affect a large section of Indian students who plan to move to the UK and have a family, Dubal adds.
Meanwhile, Ajay Sharma, Founder and President – Abhinav Immigration Services was quoted saying, “It may not drastically impact the international student community as most international students are aged between 18 to 25 years.”
The proposed policy cannot be considered a blanket ban, but the visas for dependents may be issued to students of top universities or high-value courses, he concluded.
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