£3000 UK visa bond: Nigeria Senate rejects policy, threatens to reciprocate.

 



The Senate has rejected the proposed UK visa policy that seeks to compel visitors from some countries including Nigeria to deposit 3,000 ponds bond before its immigration authority at entry point, saying it would not accept Nigeria in the list.
The upper legislative chamber threatened that it would push for the same treatment on the UK citizens in Nigeria or those seeking entry into the country by the time Nigeria is officially notified of the new
development.

Also, the Confederation of Indian Industry, which represents the country’s largest businesses, said the plan was “very unfortunate” and risked further undermining Anglo-Indian relations already strained by changes to the UK visa regime for students.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Matthew Nwagwu, said this in Abuja on Tuesday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria.
Mr. Nwagwu said Nigeria would take reciprocal action against British citizens once it received formal notification of the policy from the U.K. immigration authorities.
He pledged that the Senate would deploy necessary legislative action to ensure that Nigerian immigration authorities embarked on action commensurate with the “obnoxious U.K. policy”.

Read the report below, in case you missed it:
 
According to a report by  UK Daily Mail, visitors from 'high risk' countries in Africa and Asia will have to put up a £3,000 cash bond to enter Britain.

The money will be kept by the Government if visitors do not return home by the time their visas expire.

A pilot scheme, introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May, will target hundreds of people coming to Britain on six-month visit visas from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The countries have been picked for their high number of visa applications and what the Government sees as relatively high levels of immigration abuse and fraud, reports the Sunday Times.


The bonds, to be introduced from November, will only apply to non-EU migrants, otherwise they would fall foul of European rights to free movement. 

'This is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain,' Mrs May told The Sunday Times.

'In the long run we’re interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used our public services.'

A second scheme will cover countries such as Kenya, the newspaper reports, which are considered to be lower-risk because immigration officials have fewer doubts about migrants' plans to return home.

About 2.2million people are granted visas to enter Britain every year. Last year 296,000 people from India were granted six-month visas, as were 101,000 from Nigeria, 53,000 from Pakistan and 14,000 apiece from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Home Secretary plans to reduce annual net migration to under 100,000 by 2015.