UK Cracks Down on Student Visas from Sudan, Cameroon, Peru and Myanmar

The UK has moved to halt most new student visas and work permits from Sudan, Cameroon, Peru and Myanmar with immediate effect, as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood accuses some migrants of 'seeking to exploit our generosity' by using study and work routes as a backdoor to asylum.

The decision follows a sharp rise in foreign nationals arriving on student and worker visas and then lodging asylum claims once in Britain. According to figures cited by the Home Office, the number of students from the four named countries who went on to seek refugee status has almost sextupled since 2021. Many of those applicants, ministers say, are then being supported in asylum hotels at public expense.

The move is being framed inside the Home Office as an 'emergency brake' on student applications from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Sudan and Myanmar. At the same time, visas for skilled workers from Afghanistan are being suspended after what officials describe as 'widespread abuse of the system.' The Telegraph reported that the suspensions are open-ended and will remain in place indefinitely, though ministers insist they will be kept under review.

Student Visas At Centre Of 'Emergency Brake'

The core of the policy is a clampdown on student visas. Migrants who entered the UK on study, work or visitor visas and then switched into the asylum system accounted for nearly four in ten of the 100,000 asylum claims made in the past year, according to Home Office data. That is roughly triple the share recorded five years ago.

Over the past five years, some 133,760 migrants have claimed asylum in Britain after arriving initially on work, study or visitor visas. Officials say an above-average number of arrivals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Sudan and Myanmar go on to declare destitution, a status that allows them to be housed in taxpayer-funded accommodation such as asylum hotels. Nearly 16,000 nationals from those four countries are currently being supported at public expense.

Mahmood is not hiding the political edge of the decision. 'Britain will always provide refuge to people fleeing war and persecution, but our visa system must not be abused,' she said. 'That is why I am taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity. I will restore order and control to our borders.'

Last year, the total number of migrants claiming asylum actually outstripped the number of work visas granted. For a Home Secretary under pressure to prove she can make good on promises to cut migration, student visas have become both a practical lever and a symbol.

Student Visas Policy Tied To Wider Asylum Clampdown

The restrictions on student visas do not sit in isolation. They form part of a broader tightening of asylum and immigration rules that Mahmood is expected to set out in full on Thursday.

One of the headline changes targets failed asylum seekers who lodge last-minute claims or submit new evidence in an apparent bid to delay removal. At present, officials can spend more than seven hours sifting through fresh paperwork even when the individual has absconded. From next month, any such 'stall tactic' claims will be automatically withdrawn if the person has disappeared from contact, cutting the administrative time to under an hour.

The overhaul, due to take effect on 8 April, is expected to free up staff capacity to make up to 1,484 additional decisions a year. Alongside this, the Home Secretary will tighten the conditions for submitting fresh evidence, insisting that claimants must be physically in the UK and have no active appeals ongoing if they want their material to be considered.

None of these measures has yet been independently evaluated. The Home Office figures, as presented, make a clear political case for urgency, but they do not resolve the more awkward question of how many of those switching from student visas to asylum are doing so fraudulently, and how many are responding to genuinely changed circumstances back home.