UK bars International students from bringing family by January 2024

 The United Kingdom has put in place a law that will see 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 immigrants into the country which stands at about 1 million down.

 

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.

 

This change takes effect January 2024 to allow students starting courses in the UK time to plan to adapt to the new rules.

 

This new law comes after indications had emerged that the UK plans to put stricter laws in place to bring down the climbing number of immigrants into the country via studies.

 

The Home Office also made it clear that “the proposals announced today do not detract from the success of the government’s International Education Strategy, including meeting the target to host 600,000 international higher education students studying in the UK each year by 2030, for two years running.”

 

Official statistics, which are due to be published this week, are expected to show that net migration has increased from 504,000 in the 12 months to June 2022 to more than 700,000 in the year to December, Sky News said.

 

According to data, foreign students brought 135,788 family members to Britain last year – nine times more than in 2019 while in 2022, 59,053 Nigerian students brought over 60,923 relatives.