The Home Office of the United Kingdom has announced that it had commenced the implementation of its policy banning Nigerian students and other overseas students from bringing in dependents via the study visa route.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), on Monday, the Home Office reiterated that only those on postgraduate research or government-sponsored scholarship students will be exempted from the development.
“We are fully committed to seeing a decisive cut in migration. From today, new overseas students will no longer be able to bring family members to the UK. Postgraduate research or government-funded scholarships students will be exempt,” the Home Office said.
Back in May 2023, the United Kingdom put in place a law to stop Nigerian students, and others studying in the UK from bringing family as dependents except under specific circumstances.
This is as the UK government aims to bring down immigration into the country which stands at about one million.
Under the new rule, the UK will remove the permission for international students to switch out of the student route and into work routes before their studies have been completed to prevent misuse of the visa system.
However, the ban will not apply to PhD students, whose courses usually last between three and five years and are very highly skilled, the report stated.
This follows the reports that net migration into the UK has skyrocketed to 1 million with Tory MPs asking the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, “to get a grip on the rocketing numbers.”
To get a hold of the climbing numbers, UK ministers are said to be expected to announce the immigration clampdown on Tuesday or Wednesday.
