Home secretary to announce a drastic tightening of rules, including requiring asylum seekers to wait 20 years before getting the right to permanently settle in UK
This morning, in a news release sent to journalists (but not on its website yet), the Home Office said that it might stop granting visas to nationals from Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if their governments do not start cooperating more with the UK on accepting removals (see 8.58am) and it said “similar measures against other countries remain under consideration”.
This morning, in an interview with Sky News, Alex Norris, the border security and asylum minister, was asked if countries like India could also face visa restrictions if they do not cooperate more on removals. He replied:
The countries that we’ve started with are the ones that we’ve named. We wouldn’t rule it out with anybody else.
The reality is, with most countries, we’ve got much better relationships. We need to see these agreements work, and we’re not going to rule anything out in order to make they do.