The Conservative party manifesto for the 7 May general election, released by David Cameron on Tuesday, warned of a "deport first, appeal later" policy on illegal immigrants. A significant number of Indians are suspected of falling into this category.
The document expanded:"We will now remove even more illegal immigrants by extending this rule to all immigration appeals and judicial reviews, including so-called right to family life is involved, apart from asylum claims." It continued: "We will also implement a new removals strategy to take away opportunities for spurious legal challenge and opportunities to abscond."
A future Conservative government will adopt "satellite tracking for every foreign national offender". It will also require all landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants.
"We will maintain our cap (on non-EU immigrants) at 20,700 during the next parliament," the manifesto asserted, as well. It went on: "This will ensure that we only grant visas to those who have the skills we really need in our economy."
On student visas, which are quite relevant to India, the manifesto stated: "We will reform the student visa system with new measures to tackle abuse and reduce the numbers of students overstaying once their visas expire." The measures will include "reviewing the highly trusted sponsor system for student visas".
Last week the Conservative government of Cameron rolled out exit checks to try and discourage people from overstaying in the UK. The party will now put the onus on those sponsoring visas to guarantee compliance. "We will introduce targeted sanctions for those colleges or businesses that fail to ensure that migrants comply with the terms of their visa," the manifesto declared.
