United Kingdom has announced new immigration rules for international students. As per the statement released by UK Home Office, international students who are enrolled in non-

research post graduation courses will not be allowed to bring their family members or any dependents with them to the country.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been on the frontline to combat the migration problem in the

UK. Along with Sunak, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has announced that only those students enrolled in postgraduate courses classified as research degrees will be allowed tr bring their family members – parents, children as dependents.

“This package includes removing the right for international students to bring dependents unless they are on postgraduate courses currently designated as research programmes,” stated the notes presented by UK Home

Secretary.

Under the new immigration curbs, foreign students in the UK for postgraduation in non-research courses will not be allowed to bring any family members to the UK. Apart from this, the UK Government also plans to remove the ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before they can complete their studies and reviewing the maintenance requirements for students and dependents as measures to curb foreign migration.

Announcing the new immigration rules in the House of Commons, Braverman added that these new rules are a necessity to control the rate of migration in United Kingdom.

The statement was issued two days before the official net statistics are revealed. As per reports, the statistics are expected to show that migration has hit a record of 7,00,000 for 2022-23. In 2022, UK granted a total of 1,35,788 visas to the dependents of foreign students, which is nearly nine times that figure recorded for 2019.