UK Bans Nigerian Students from Bringing Family Members: New Immigration Policy

The UK’s Home Office has implemented a dependent visa ban prohibiting Nigerian and international students from bringing family members. The policy, instituted in May 2023, was reinforced in January 2024 to check the influx of immigrants and address housing problems.

The dependant visa ban will only allow international students in postgraduate research or government-sponsored scholarships to bring their dependants through study visas.

According to the Home Office, the policy is part of a more comprehensive package of measures to drastically bring down the high numbers of migrants coming to the UK to sustainable levels and crack down on those who take advantage of the flexibility of the UK’s immigration system. The changes will see an estimated 140,000 fewer people come to the UK.

The UK government is fully committed to seeing a decisive cut in migration, and the new policy 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.

International students starting courses in January 2024 can no longer bring family members to all but postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships. The maintenance requirement for students and dependents will also be reviewed, and there will be a crackdown on ‘unscrupulous’ education agents who use inappropriate applications to sell immigration, not education.

The Office for National Statistics estimated that net migration was 672,000 from June 2022 to June 2023. In the year ending September 2023, 152,980 visas were issued to dependants of students, a more than 930% rise from the 14,839 in the year ending September 2019.

The dependent visa ban policy reduces migration, and the UK government hopes that the new policy will help address the housing problems.