Foreign students will not be permitted to bring their families, including spouses, kids, and parents, to the UK, the country stated on Tuesday.
According to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the limitations will start in January 2024.
She added that the restriction only applies to international undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in non-research courses.
The UK government provided the following justifications for this new restriction policy:
1. Rishi Sunak’s initiative to decrease immigration
Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of Great Britain, has proposed that reducing immigration is one of the strategies to revitalize the British economy. He then employed this as a strategy to reduce immigration to the UK.
2. Nigerian students are the most numerous Africans studying in the UK.
After China and India, Nigeria has the third-highest number of students studying in the UK, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), a UK organization that collects educational data. It is also the first in Africa as a result.
3. Most immigrants moving to the UK are not EU citizens.
The UK government is concerned that a major portion of the increase in immigration has come from people entering the country from outside the EU, including 170,000. According to Sunak’s authorities, migrants from Asia and Africa are resettling in Sunak.
4. To stop Nigerians from taking over the British economy and to restrict their numbers.
To stop immigrants from consuming important economic sectors, the UK government is reducing immigration. This week, Braverman advocated for reduced immigration and urged training more Britons to perform tasks typically performed by foreign employees, such as driving a lorry and picking fruit.