May 23, (THEWILL) – The United Kingdom, on Tuesday, said all foreign students, except those on postgraduate research programmes, will be barred from bringing their dependants from January 2024
Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, announced the development on Tuesday.
Unveiling the new restrictions in the House of Commons, Braverman told MPs that the package “strikes the right balance between acting decisively on tackling net migration and protecting the economic benefits that students can bring to the UK.
“Now is the time for us to make these changes to ensure an impact on net migration as soon as possible. We expect this package to have a tangible impact on net migration. Taken together with the easing of temporary factors, we expect net migration to fall to pre-pandemic levels in the medium term.”
In addition, the new plans also declare that “International students will no longer be able to switch out of the student visa route into work before their studies have been completed,” adding that steps will be taken to clamp down on “unscrupulous education agents, who may be supporting inappropriate applications to sell immigration, not education.”
Currently, students who come to study in the UK from abroad can apply to bring dependents, including their partners or children with them to live in the country while they study, with some allowed to stay for two years after the course finishes.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his Cabinet on Tuesday, that the number of visas issued to dependents joining those studying at universities in the UK had increased eight-fold from 16,000 in 2019 to 136,000 in 2022.
