Britain has said it will block student visas for citizens of four countries and stop issuing work visas to Afghan nationals in a bid to reduce legal asylum claims, Reuters reports.
Immigration remains one of Britain’s most politically sensitive issues, and the government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer is looking at ways to tighten the immigration system as the populist Reform Party gains ground in the polls.
The British Home Office plans to block student visas for citizens of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, saying that asylum claims from students from these countries have increased fivefold between 2021 and 2025. The ministry also said that applications from Afghans in the country on work visas had exceeded the number of visas issued. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said that Britain would always provide asylum to people fleeing war and persecution, but the country’s visa system must not be misused. Therefore, the minister has taken the decision to refuse visas to those who want to take advantage of British generosity.
According to information provided by the government, asylum applications from people who arrived in the country after obtaining a visa after 2021 have reached a very high number, accounting for 39% of the approximately 100,000 applications submitted last year. Currently, almost 16,000 citizens of the four listed countries are currently receiving support from the state, and about 6,000 of them are staying in hotels,
thereby increasing the cost of providing asylum, which was about four billion pounds last year.
The changes will come into effect on the 26th of March, and the government added that it plans to establish a limited number of safe and legal pathways once the asylum system stabilizes.
Britain has granted asylum to more than 37,000 Afghans under the resettlement scheme since 2021, and issued about 190,000 humanitarian visas last year. The British said they had established cooperation with Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on repatriation.
Starmer has previously said that Britain’s asylum rules are much looser than those of other European countries, and therefore act as a pull factor for people trying to enter the country. His government announced plans in November last year to make asylum-seeker status temporary and speed up the repatriation of those who entered the country illegally.
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