UK Home Secretary James Cleverly has announced that the country intends to cut net migration levels and curb “abuse” of the immigration system by slashing legal immigration by 300,000 people a year.
“My plan will deliver the biggest ever reduction in net migration and will mean around 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would not have been able to do so. I am taking decisive action to halt the drastic rise in our work visa routes and crack down on those who seek to take advantage of our hospitality,” Cleverly said in a statement published by the UK government.
The UK authorities are also set to tighten the Health and Care visa that has been granted to a significant number of “care workers and their dependants” by preventing overseas care employees from “bringing their dependants to the UK,” the statement read.
“From next spring, the government will increase the earning threshold for overseas workers by nearly 50% from its current position of £26,200 [$33,105] to £38,700 [$48,899], encouraging businesses to look to British talent first and invest in their workforce, helping us to deter employers from over-relying on migration, whilst bringing salaries in line with the average full-time salary for these types of jobs,” the statement added.
Annual net migration in the UK amounted to 672,000 as of June, down 10% from a record high of 745,000 recorded in December 2022, according to the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
Rising migration levels, including undocumented migrants, have been a pressing issue for the UK for years and intensified after the country left the European Union in 2020. In April 2022, the UK and Rwanda signed a migration agreement, stipulating that people recognized by the UK government as undocumented migrants or asylum seekers will be deported to Rwanda to have their documents processed, receive asylum, and be resettled.
In March 2023, the UK government presented a bill that seeks to relocate migrants who came to the UK illegally by boat across the English Channel to a “safe third country” like Rwanda. However, in late June 2023, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that London’s plan to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda was unlawful, prompting the Home Office to appeal for a review of the decision.
