Visa hopefuls bordering on despair as UK tightens policy

Wang Jianyu, 30, sounded deeply frustrated on the other end of the phone as he admitted that he had not yet been granted a permanent residence visa for Britain.

"Not yet. It's been five months already," sighed Wang in a low, quiet voice. "The first thing I do every day when I get home from work is check the mail to see if there's a big envelope with my passport inside. But nothing has arrived, so far."

Having lived in Britain for more than 10 years, Wang, a salesman for a London company, has a valid work permit that he obtained five years ago. He is now eligible for permanent residency.

He did not expect such a long delay and has been forced to postpone a summer trip home to Tianjin.

"I don't know how long I will need to wait. It just seems indefinite," Wang, who has only been home twice in 10 years, said. "It's just bad luck that I submitted my application just when Britain is cutting back on immigration."

The program to tighten border controls began two years ago when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took office.

During the election campaign, David Cameron, now the UK Prime Minster, said he wanted to reduce net annual migration - the number of immigrants entering the country minus the number of emigrants - from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands.

Excluding visitor and transit visas, 13 percent fewer visas (529,000) were issued in the year ending March 2012 than in the previous 12 months (609,000), according to the Home Office. This reduction includes a 21 percent decrease in "study" visas, 8 percent in "work" and 16 percent in the "family" category.

The tightening will also affect Chinese expats. About 108,000 Chinese nationals now live in the UK, most of whom are students, according to the UK Office for National Statistics.

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese students in the UK higher education system rose to 67,325 in the 2010-11 academic year, an increase of 43 percent from 2008-09, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

The total number of Chinese applicants for UK student visas is expected to reach 100,000 this year, according to Philip Hao, CEO of the UK Visa and International Education Centre in London.

"The impact has yet to appear," said Hao, explaining that this is because of flourishing cooperation in educational matters, such as joint degrees, between Chinese and British institutions during recent years.

The abolition of the post-study work visa in April will also have some impact on students who want to study through the joint degree program in future, he added.

"Almost all of the top 400 Chinese institutions are cooperating overseas and things are blossoming right now. Irrespective of any policy changes, those already enrolled on joint degree courses (two or three years in China, and one or two more years at a UK institution) will certainly come," said Hao.

The closure of the post-study work visa route means that overseas students who graduate from British universities will no longer be allowed to stay for two years after graduation to look for work.

More than 184,000 post-study work visas were granted between 2004 and 2011, according to Migration Watch UK, an independent think tank. However, the abrupt closure of the route may lead to a decrease in the number of Chinese applicants to British universities.

"Those who want to apply for joint degrees may have to consider whether they should still do so, or turn to the US or Australia instead. The number of Chinese applicants to the UK will consequently fall," said Hao.

Meanwhile, a coalition of British universities has warned that tighter visa restrictions for international students will cost universities between 5 and 8 billion pounds ($7.8 billion to $12.5 billion) a year.

As non-European Union students can be charged up to four times the tuition fee levied on a British student, universities depend on international students as a major source of income. Some universities are already reporting a 40 percent decline in overseas applications.

"A 40 percent drop is going to cause a university to respond pretty rapidly," said Professor Eric Thomas, president of Universities UK and vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol. "There aren't that many income streams for universities to grow in the current economic climate."

Thomas wrote to Cameron in May to point out that Chinese and Indian students, the biggest contributors to the 5 billion-plus pounds earned from international students each year, view the move as the UK "putting up barriers to entry".

Non-EEA applications

Apart from abolishing the post-study work visa, the UK government has also implemented more measures to limit the length of stay for international students, both while studying and after graduation.

For example, only overseas students enrolled in postgraduate courses lasting more than a year are permitted to bring dependents into the country.

The restrictions will also cast a long shadow over workers from countries outside the European Economic Area, a bloc that comprises members of both the EU and the European Free Trade Association. Four categories will be dramatically affected, including high-value immigrants and overseas domestic workers.

"We need to know not just that the right number of people are coming here, but that the right people are coming here. People that will benefit Britain - not just those who will benefit from Britain," said Damian Green, the UK immigration minister.

A number of factors have been cited to explain the introduction of tighter border controls. The most obvious is there have been complaints that immigrants are getting jobs and benefits at the expense of British people at a time when economic growth is still sluggish.

"Unemployment among recent British graduates is now about 20 percent. They already have to compete with European Union graduates. It is inexcusable that tens of thousands of jobs should go to foreign graduates without any requirement to test the local market first," commented Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK.

The think tank also said that foreign nationals occupy one in five of London's social housing properties, quoting data from the Office for National Statistics indicating that these families live in more than 350,000 council and housing association properties while British nationals occupy 1.5 million.

Green, who called the latest immigration statistics "very disappointing", has suggested that the UK government takes tougher measures in order to meet the targets outlined in the 2010 election campaign.

Caution urged

However, business and industrial leaders have urged the government to exercise great caution on immigration controls, especially as the country needs more foreign investment.

"It does look like the government's target of reducing immigration from a quarter of a million to tens of thousands by the end of this parliament (nominally 2015) is a very ambitious one," said Jim Bligh, head of Labour Market and Pensions Policy at the Confederation of British Industry, the UK's biggest business lobby.

"If they want to meet that target, we would urge them very strongly not to bear down on business immigration rates or those for student immigration, which we know are very popular among Chinese businesses and students," he said.

"But the perception is that the immigration system is not helping investment and is actively deterring (it). It's something the government has to tackle," Bligh added.

The overarching idea is that the government needs to send a message that Britain is open to Chinese business, visitors, and students, he said. "We have to give a warm welcome to people coming to Britain to do business and help our economy grow."

The complaints aren't just coming from the business community. The authorities have also been criticized for introducing "the harshest policy for 10 or 15 years" on family migration.

A number of changes came into effect on July 9, affecting non-EEA nationals applying to enter or remain in the UK under the family migration route.

The key change is the introduction of a new minimum income threshold of 18,600 pounds for people who want to sponsor UK settlement of a spouse or partner, or a fiance or proposed civil partner of non-EEA nationality.

"This is a policy that makes it rigidly uniform," said Xiang Sixing, a Chinese national who works for Visalogic Ltd, which provides professional advice to clients requiring assistance with UK immigration and visas.

Visalogic often helps Chinese clients, many of whom are applying for family migration or a partner visa. In some cases, British nationals were attempting to move back to the UK with the Chinese spouses they married while working abroad.

Despite many of them earning more than the 18,600 pounds annual threshold, they still found it hard to sponsor their spouse for a visa "just because they had not proper job offer in the UK temporarily".

"So they have had to stay apart. They are actually in a very good financial condition and won't live on welfare," Xiang said. "We hope they (the UK government) will introduce more policies to relax this rigid policy. But we are not confident."

Still without his passport, Wang Jianyu admitted he has "no choice but to wait".

"My initial plan was to get my passport back quickly and then spend the summer traveling back home and somewhere sunny. What will I do now? Enjoy the awful, rainy British weather," he joked.