Australia has announced that it is cutting the number of new immigrants down from the current levels of 510,000 people per year to 250,000 people per year.
The new targets are set to be realized within two years in what has been termed by the Australia government as a move to rein in their chaotic immigration systems.
Among those targeted in the cuts are international students. In the new strategy, international students will now be required to show higher English test scores before their visas can be processed.
The students will also need to prove that they are genuine students before they can enter Australia. If they complete their studies and aren’t able to immediately find a job in the list of categories in demand, these students will be required to leave the country immediately.
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The Australian government has also said that it might also cut the number of students who can be admitted in the country or raise the amount of fees on their visas to further bring the numbers down.
Australia Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neil has also said that the new policy on immigration numbers will stop the practice commonly known as visa hopping, where immigrants hop from one immigration visa to the other if they find that they don’t qualify during processing.
Ms. O’Neil says that in the current year to June 2024, the numbers will be slashed from 510,000 to 375,000. This will then be cut to 250,000 in the subsequent year to June 2025.
At the same time, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that immigrants had been taking advantage of their immigration system by immigrating under the guise if studies only for them to pursue courses that do not benefit them or the country at large.
“We do need to have our migration levels brought to a sustainable level. People are coming here, enrolling in courses that don’t really add substantially to either their skills base or to the national interest here,” he said.
Australia now joins the United Kingdom in containing immigration numbers, with Canada currently under pressure to also cut down on its immigration numbers that have been widely criticized as a contributing factor to the ongoing housing shortage crisis.
