The UK’s Home Office will restrict work and study visa applications from nationalities including Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, and Nigerians, who are most likely to overstay and claim asylum.

Under Labour’s plans to crack down on abuse of the system, visas will be rejected for individuals who fit the profile of someone who will go on to claim asylum and are from countries with high rates of asylum claims in the UK.

Officials will also use bank statements submitted by visa applicants to reject claims that they are destitute and require taxpayer-funded accommodation, such as hotels.

It is understood that the measures will be announced as part of efforts to prevent work and study visas from being used as a backdoor into Britain’s asylum system. They will be part of the government’s Immigration White Paper, due to be published next week, that will detail Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for reducing net migration, which stood at 728,000 last year.

The curbs are likely to prompt a backlash from those countries included, who may feel it discriminates against them. Legal sources said the move would be discriminatory and would be challenged in the courts.

Immigration reforms were promised in Labour’s general election manifesto last year but have taken on added impetus after the party was trounced by Nigel Farage’s Reform in last week’s local elections.

Other reforms expected include restrictions that will force foreign graduates to leave the UK unless they get a graduate-level job, which will be based on skill levels rather than salary.

Being granted asylum gives individuals the opportunity to stay in the UK permanently, whereas work and study visas are only temporary. Rejected asylum seekers can prolong their stay — sometimes indefinitely — by making repeated appeals to frustrate their deportation.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is concerned about a sharp increase in migrants on work and study visas who go on to claim asylum and are housed in Home Office-provided accommodation.

Last year, 40,000 asylum claims were lodged by people who had held a UK visa, 37 per cent of the total and more than the 35,000 asylum applications from migrants who arrived on small boats. Nearly 10,000 asylum claimants who had originally arrived in the UK legally on work or study visas were living in taxpayer-funded accommodation, such as hotels, at some point last year.

Cooper is planning to introduce measures to bar migrants who came to the UK on a work or study visa from claiming taxpayer-funded accommodation. Asylum seekers can claim accommodation and other financial support if they are destitute or likely to become destitute. However, work and study visa holders must prove they have sufficient funds to sustain themselves while in the UK.

Officials will be instructed to use the bank statements submitted by visa holders as part of their assessment when deciding whether to grant them asylum accommodation. This will make it significantly harder for asylum seekers to claim free accommodation if they came to the UK on a visa.

The Home Office is also building intelligence to enable caseworkers to spot patterns in the profile of people who are most likely to abuse work and study visas as a loophole to claim asylum. They have earmarked Pakistani, Nigerian and Sri Lankan visa holders as the most likely to go on to apply for asylum, according to government sources.

Officials are working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) to build a model that would reject a visa claim from a migrant who fits the profile of someone likely to go on to claim asylum.

They have identified patterns of behaviour, such as low engagement in university courses, of individuals who have used the routes to claim asylum.

The Home Office and NCA will also investigate interactions of visa applicants from countries with high rates of asylum claims to check whether they have been in contact with suspected people smugglers or individuals who teach migrants how to use the UK’s visa system as a back door to claiming asylum.

Of the 40,000 asylum claims lodged last year by people who had held a UK visa, 16,000 were originally foreign students, 11,500 had a work visa, 9,500 had a visitor visa, and the remaining 7 per cent had other forms of leave.

Asylum seekers can also claim protection for family members who are with them. There has been a surge in the number of migrants on study and work visas bringing dependents in the last three years, with Indians and Nigerians the most likely to do so. (The Times)

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Chinese authorities arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans in one day in a sweeping crackdown after unprecedented mass protests erupted nearly two weeks ago.

Hundreds of monks and local residents took to the streets to protest at government plans to demolish at least two villages and six monasteries, displacing thousands of Tibetans, in order to construct a hydroelectric dam.

Chinese police responded to protesters with tasers, water cannon and pepper spray, arresting at least 100 people on Thursday, rights groups said. 

Then, on Friday, authorities arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans in Derge, a major centre for Tibetan culture and history, and also where the dam is due to be built.

Short video clips have emerged of Chinese police forcibly restraining and knocking down Tibetan Buddhist monks in dark red robes.

Chinese government censors, however, have quickly scrubbed mentions of the protests and ensuing crackdown within China itself.

Local residents have reportedly had their phones confiscated, and key search terms such as “Derge dam protests” have been blocked on Chinese internet search engines.

Such public demonstrations are very rare in China – strict government surveillance both physically and digitally makes it difficult for groups to organise, and doing so carries a great risk of torture, arrest, and possibly death.

The protests in Derge are unprecedented, and could be the largest demonstrations since mass rallies rocked China in late 2022 when people peacefully took to the streets to rally against three years of tight Covid restrictions.

“The events in Derge are an example of Beijing’s destructive policies in Tibet,” said Kai Müller, managing director of the International Campaign for Tibet, in a statement. “The Chinese regime tramples on the rights of Tibetans and ruthlessly and irretrievably destroys valuable Tibetan cultural assets.

“Beijing’s development and infrastructure projects are not only a threat to Tibetans, but also to regional security, especially when it comes to water supplies to affected Asian countries.”

Tibetans from Derge living in other parts of China have travelled back to their hometown to press for the release of their detained relatives, though rights groups say they’ve been detained as well.

Detainees were instructed to bring their own food and bedding – a sign that people rounded up could be held for a prolonged period of time.

Derge is considered a centre for Tibetan culture and history, and is home to monasteries with murals dating back to the 13th century. A printing press attached to a monastery in Derge has also long been the site of pilgrimages.

In recent days, some Tibetans have been protesting in solidarity in India’s Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile, and also at Chinese embassies and consulates in the US and Europe, to draw public attention to the issue.

“Criminalised for defending their homes and environment, Tibetans inside Tibet are risking their lives by sharing videos on social media exposing the reality of Tibet under occupation of the Chinese government,” Chemi Lhamo, campaigns director of Students for a Free Tibet said in a statement.

“This displacement of thousands of indigenous peoples that have stewarded their ancestral lands for millennia is a human rights and a climate justice issue.”

The Chinese government has long sought to bring Tibet to heel over concerns that there might be separatist movements posing a political challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

In response, Beijing has for decades installed economic development programmes in hopes of maintaining stability in the region, though it has been done at the expense of Tibetan homes and monasteries, key to the region’s history and culture. (Telegraph)

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