UK faces legal hurdles for visa crackdown on Sri Lankans

The UK Government could face legal hurdles in its plans to restrict visas for nationalities considered most likely to overstay and claim asylum, including Sri Lankans.

Under Home Office plans, first reported in The Times, visas will be rejected for those 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.

One human rights lawyer, who was involved in successfully challenging the previous government?s Rwanda scheme, told The i Paper this could be considered discrimination.

They added: ?Any asylum claim should be considered on its own merit rather than based on numbers. Clamping down in this way appears to go against the spirit of the Refugee Convention, especially in the absence of alternative routes.?

Although the details of how this would work remain unclear, the lawyer said the policy would be more difficult to challenge if a restriction on visa numbers from a specific country was applied before an applicant was able to apply, rather than if the policy was used as a reason for rejection.

Mandeep Khroud, national head of the immigration team at the law firm Irwin Mitchell, detailed two potential areas for challenge, but said that more detail was needed.

?Crucially, the Home Office has yet to outline how the policy would be implemented, and it remains unclear whether it would apply to individuals already in the UK on valid work or study visas.

?Potential grounds for judicial challenge could include the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010 ? given that nationality is a protected characteristic ? as well as relevant non-discrimination provisions under the European Convention on Human Rights.?

Jacqueline McKenzie, partner and head of immigration and asylum law at law firm Leigh Day, said the proposed policy was ?a worrying step?.

?Most people are concerned with overall immigration because of the perceived socio-economic impact. Net migration for 2024 was 728,000 and the number of asylum claims was just 84,000. Most people coming to the UK come in visa categories, not as asylum seekers, and it?s unclear how the Government thinks this will stop people coming from the major source countries where there is war and instability,? she said.

McKenzie echoed concerns that the proposals were discriminatory and highlighted the inclusion of Nigerians, who do not feature highly among asylum claimants but do account for 9 per cent of the overseas students arriving in the UK last year.

?To be singling out nationalities who contribute so much to our universities, most of whom are facing a funding crisis, when there is no evidence of abuse in the asylum system by those nationalities, is not only deeply worrying but also counterproductive,? she said.

Officials are working with the National Crime Agency to build a model that would reject suspicious visa claims, and have identified patterns of behaviour, such as low engagement in university courses.

Last year 40,000 asylum claims were lodged by people who had held a UK visa, according to the Home Office.

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This represents 37 per cent of the total and more than the 35,000 asylum applications from migrants arriving on small boats. Total net migration was 728,000 last year.

Some 10,000 people who claimed asylum in 2024 after entering on a visa were in accommodation provided by the Home Office. This number rises to more than 25,000 when considering claims lodged from 2022 to 2024.

Of those asylum seekers who had originally entered on a visa and are currently in Home Office-provided accommodation, the most common nationalities were Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

The plans, designed to prevent work and study visas from being used to access the asylum system, are expected to be published next week as part of the Government?s immigration White Paper.

The plans were revealed after Labour lost two-thirds of the seats it was defending at the local elections, while Reform made sweeping gains after making immigration a key voter issue.

As part of the reported proposed plans, foreign graduates will also be forced to leave the UK unless they get a graduate-level job based on skill levels rather than salary. (The i Paper)