The United Kingdom has announced new rules that it says will cut down on net immigration and curb illegal immigration in the country.

The UK new immigration rules were announced by Home Secretary James Cleverly. The new rules mean that up to 300,000 people who immigrated to the UK in 2022 would no longer be able to immigrate there.

“The package of measures will end the high numbers of dependants coming to the UK, increase the minimum salaries that overseas workers and British or settled people sponsoring family members must earn, and tackle exploitation across the immigration system,” the office of the Home Secretary announced in a statement.

The UK government further announced that it will tighten the Health and Care Worker visa. It says that this visa has seen a significant number of visas granted to care workers and their dependants. Now, the new rules will preventing overseas care workers from bringing their dependants to the UK.

“Care providers in England will now only be able to sponsor migrant workers if they are undertaking activities regulated by the Care Quality Commission,” the Home Secretary further said.

“In the year ending September 2023, 101,000 Health and Care Worker visas were issued to care workers and senior care workers, with an estimated 120,000 visas granted to associated dependants, the majority of whom we estimate don’t work, but still make use of public services.”

The United Kingdom has also said that it will require employers to first consider British talent first before going dir international workers.

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To implement this, the government is raising the amount of minimum salary to be paid to international workers by up to 50 per cent.

“From next spring, the government will increase the earning threshold for overseas workers by nearly 50% from its current position of £26,200 to £38,700. This will l deter employers from over-relying on migration, while bringing salaries in line with the average full-time salary for these types of jobs,” the statement further announced.

The UK new immigration rules are also set to impact students by stopping them from bringing their dependents to the United Kingdom.

“This new package of measures builds on the tough action already taken to tackle the substantial rise in students bringing dependants to the UK, which will come into force in the new year. We expect this change will have a tangible impact on net migration, with around 153,000 visas granted to dependants of sponsored students in the year ending September 2023,” said Cleverly.