Crackdown on student visa’s as numbers surge
Seema Malhotra, the UK’s Indo-Pacific Minister defended government Immigration proposals on student visas.
Image Credit: University of Leeds
The UK government have made changes to immigration policy. This includes making refugee status temporary. It must also be renewed every 30 months. Students have also been affected with the implementation of a new work study visa route. This ensures that people arriving in the UK musts search for employment or be in education.
According to the BBC, these proposals could impact up 2.6 million people residing in the UK who have arrived since 2021.
Seema Malholtra said:
“We welcome those who come legally.”
There were reports of 16,000 international students who had applied for asylum since completing their studies. Overall, from India one of the UK’s imports of students saw an 11% drop this year since the implementation of these reforms. Malhotra intends to prevent the number of people ‘abusing visa’s’. University’s have been placed under more financial pressure with the reduction of international students.
The UK has been reliant on an internationally educated workforce. In nursing, 200,000 nurses were from abroad, making up 25% of the UK nursing workforce.