[News] Why the arrival of migrants to the UK has almost tripled despite the promises of Brexit

[#Steeven.™]

Three successive prime ministers promised it. And they all finished their term without achieving it.

Reducing migration to the UK has been a constant commitment of the Conservative Party in the 13 years it has been in power.

David Cameron and Theresa May spoke of lowering the number to "tens of thousands".

Boris Johnson "learned his lesson from too specific a promise" and simply said the numbers would drop after Brexit, says Chris Mason, the BBC's political editor.

However, Mason adds, the promises of the three politicians "were washed away by reality."

Rhetoric clashed with facts again in the government of current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Net migration (people who arrive in the United Kingdom minus those who leave) stood at 606,000 people in 2022, according to data released in May by the British Office for National Statistics (ONS, for its acronym in English).

Data are from people who have been in the UK for at least 12 months.

The figure represents an increase of 164,000 compared to the total for 2021. And it is almost triple the net migration in 2019, which was estimated at 226,000.

The campaign in favor of Brexit promised above all to regain control of the borders or "take back control", as the po[CENSORED]r slogan of those who promoted the exit from the European Union said.

How is it then explained that almost 7 years after the vote in favor of Brexit, net migration continues to rise?

Behind the increase there are three main factors, according to data from the ONS and experts consulted by the BBC.

 

1-International students

The figure of 606,000 net migrants in 2022 results from subtracting 557,000 (those who left) from 1.2 million (those who arrived).

Of that 1.2 million people who entered, 925,000 came from outside the European Union. And of them, almost 40% arrived with a student visa.

"International students are a very important source of income for British universities," Mariña Fernández Reino, senior researcher at the Oxford University Migration Observatory, told BBC Mundo.

"Universities relied heavily on students from China, who were the vast majority of international students who came in recent years."

"Then the government promoted a diversification strategy so that, in the event that the flow of students decreased, admission to universities would not suffer so much."

Peter Walsh, an expert at the same center at the University of Oxford, told the BBC that there have been initiatives by the government and the universities themselves to recruit students, for example, in India and Nigeria.

"International students pay higher tuition fees that subsidize the education of local students in the UK," Walsh added.

To attract students, the government introduced the so-called "post study work" less than two years ago.

"This means that if you come as an international student then you can stay for two years working in any job, even if it is not linked to what you have studied," explained Fernández Reino.

"That made the option of coming to the UK more attractive than it was before, when you could come for a year but then you had to leave."

Another factor that increased the numbers is that students from India, Nigeria and other countries often come with their families.

Fernández Reino pointed out that "a high percentage come with dependents, with partners or with children. So this means that the number of people who come with this student visa has increased a lot. Most of the students from China, on the other hand, came alone ".

Walsh told the BBC that international students brought "around 100,000 couples and children" last year.

 

New restrictions on students
The Rishi Sunak government recently announced limitations on the income of dependents of students.

Fernández Reino explained that from next year only those who come to do master's degrees or research doctorates will be able to bring dependents.

"Of course, it will have an impact on two things. One is that a smaller number will come, because only the student who enrolls will be able to do so. And another is that the change may make studying in the United Kingdom less attractive."

"The research master's degrees are normally two years and they are the ones that give access to a doctoral program here. It is a very small percentage of the master's degrees. And they have not been prohibited from bringing dependents because if you have a family you cannot be separated for four years" .

The Russell Group, which represents most of Britain's most prestigious universities, said the new restrictions will impact the ability of study centers to attract "vital income" from international students.

2-Work visas

The second largest driver of the increase in net migrants in 2022 was the number of workers from outside the European Union (EU). Their number nearly doubled from 137,000 to 235,000 in the space of a year.

In the case of EU citizens, more people left the UK in 2022 (202,000) than arrived (151,000), according to the ONS.

The increase in workers from outside the EU was mainly due to the extension of the visa for "qualified workers" or skilled workers.

This route, prior to Brexit, already allowed the entry of qualified people sponsored by British companies or institutions, such as doctors or nurses.

But in 2022, "more occupations that are often not considered fully qualified were included. The most important is that of care workers with a little experience, what they call senior care workers, who can now come and were previously excluded" .

"We are seeing that visas have increased a lot because those workers who come with special visas for the health sector."

The top three countries of origin for caregivers in the healthcare sector are India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, according to the ONS.

Vidia Ruhomutally, who immigrated to the Kingdom from Mauritius decades ago, owns a nursing home in Norfolk County, three hours from London.

Ruhomutally told the BBC that she hires many of her workers from India.

"Without India we would not be here," she said.

"And without us, the local hospital would have full beds that it couldn't free up for other patients."

3-Ukraine and Hong Kong

Resettlement schemes created in the wake of what the ONS calls "unprecedented global events" were the third biggest driver of the increase in net migration.

The number of non-EU citizens arriving in the UK via humanitarian routes increased from 9% to 19% in 2022.

In 2022, 114,000 Ukrainians and 52,000 Hong Kong citizens entered for at least 12 months. The latter were offered a special visa scheme after China imposed a national security law on the former British colony.

"The numbers are too high"
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacted to the figures released in May by insisting that migration "is not out of control."

In a television interview the day the data was released, Sunak said: "The numbers are too high, it's as simple as that. And I want to bring them down."

The net migration figure could drop in the future, according to Dominic Casciani, BBC legal and home affairs correspondent.

"The inflow of people from Ukraine and Hong Kong is expected to cease and the inflow of workers may stabilize."

On the other hand, "the departure of international students should increase, while many new ones will no longer be able to bring their relatives," added Casciani.

For Fernández Reino, "predicting is always difficult, there is uncertainty. But we are seeing from the data that came out for December 2022, compared to September, that migration has not continued to grow."

As for the income from Ukraine, "they were concentrated just in the months after the invasion and then they have gradually decreased, although it is always difficult to make a forecast because it is true that there could be a very great deterioration in the conditions of the war."

For the expert, it could continue to increase the income of workers for care and health, if there are no changes in the regulations.

"We know that there is a very large labor shortage in those two sectors. But even so, I think that the global numbers are going to go down because the number of people leaving is going to increase."

As for irregular migration, the government announced in 2022 a controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The initiative has not yet been implemented due to appeals filed before the British courts and an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights.

For Dominic Casciani, the figures for admissions to the United Kingdom "could drop by another 70,000 people if the government's controversial plan to divert almost all asylum applications abroad works, but that is a conditional 'if' as big as the height of the cliffs of Dover".

Costs and benefits
Chris Mason points out that migration is much more than a matter of numbers.

It is an issue that also has to do with "emotion, communities and public services. With promises, people and places."

For Fernández Reino, it is important to take into account that frequently "politicians overestimate their ability to regulate migratory flows."

"Many times the ability of politicians to reduce these figures is limited. Now they are going to try it with the issue of reducing the number of dependents of students."

The change may, however, come at a great cost to universities.

Migration measures usually have a face and a tail, adds Fernández Reino.

Reducing net migration "always benefits or harms someone."

"And even on the issue of irregular migration and asylum seekers, hardening measures often do not have the expected effect of limiting the number of people arriving."

 

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-65778601