Latest UK visa crackdown unlikely to target Thai applicants
Some UK visa applicants are to face more strenuous inquiries prior to travel permission.
The British government intends to make visa applications from certain countries more difficult. The main focus is on Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka because of the large number of nationals who, once in the UK, claim asylum status. Whilst their claims are being assessed, the Home Office often has to foot the bill for hotel accommodation. Student status is the most common visa category for potential abuse. In 2024 there were 108,000 such cases across all nationalities, according to the think tank The UK in a Changing World.
But Thai nationals applying for UK visas are unlikely to be targeted as very few of them overstay or claim to be political refugees. In 2023 there were 58,000 successful visa applicants from Thailand (over 90% success rate) though the application numbers have been declining in recent years owing to stiffening entry rules. For example, the minimum annual salary required for a work visa in UK is now 38,700 pounds and there are restrictions on most students and overseas care workers bringing family members.
Visit (tourist) visas depend on the applicant proving close ties with Thailand such as a job, property or independent finances which are known as “urgent reasons to return to Thailand”. Settlement visas, typically for Thai family members wishing to live in UK, now require a minimum of 29,000 pounds income from the British husband or sponsor. This could increase even further in the near future, though prime minister Keir Starmer has put further rises on hold for the time being.
Professor Jonathan Portes, speaking for the think tank, said, “The government is looking at abuses in the system, so the main impact will be on countries which have a high number of asylum or overstay cases.” He added that the government was working with the National Crime Agency to build a model to profile applicants and check the detail of their financial resources. Immigration lawyer Jessataporn Bunnag said Thailand was not a country guilty of having problems with overstay in UK or fake requests for extra time. He expected no change in the way Thai visa applications are handled by UK authorities.
Political commentators believe that a UK crackdown on asylum seekers has likely been prompted by the rise of the opposition Reform party which, in recent local elections, took 677 of the seats of the 1,600 up for grabs. Reform, which has an anti-immigrant platform, often refers to a broken immigration system which favors foreign arrivals over native Britons and costs the British tax payer billions of pounds in hotel accommodation or welfare for entrants and their families who have run out of cash.
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