The United Kingdom is set to ban most foreign students from bringing their families over to Britain in an immigration crackdown being announced this week.
Most foreign students to be banned from moving family to the UK in major immigration crackdown
The United Kingdom is set to ban most foreign students from bringing their families over to Britain in an immigration crackdown being announced this week.
But the Prime Minister’s Office has rejected calls by the Home Office to lift the salary threshold for foreign workers from £26,000 to £33,000 to bring down numbers.
According to The Sun UK, the move comes as official figures out this Thursday are expected to show that net migration has rocketed to 1 million.
It was reported that some Tory MPs have broken cover to call for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to curb the rocketing numbers.
Scrambling to get ahead of the bad news, ministers are expected to announce the immigration clampdown on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The crackdown will affect all master’s students and many other postgraduate students and it will prevent them 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, The Sun UK reports.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman and her deputy Robert Jenrick also wanted to lift the salary threshold but were overruled after kickback from the Treasury.
Currently, foreign workers have to meet a £26,000 salary threshold to move to Britain.
But the Home Office wanted to raise this to £33,000 – which is the average wage of a worker in Britain.
Rishi Sunak is expected to come out fighting on immigration – pointing out they are figures he inherited as they date back to the year ending December 2022 – two months after he became PM.
There has been an explosion in the number of people coming to Britain piggybacking on their relative’s student visa, including Asians and Africans, many of whom are Nigerians.
Students brought 135,788 family members to Britain last year – nine times more than in 2019.
Last year, 59,053 Nigerian students brought over 60,923 relatives.
One Tory MP told The Sun on Sunday: “We have got to get a grip.”
