The latest revelation from the British Home Office says that 34,300 applications for British National (Overseas) Passport BNO visas from Hong Kong people seeking to live in the UK have been made in the past two months. British Home Secretary Priti Patel said via Twitter on May 27, “Global Britain will always stand up for freedom and deliver on our promises”.
In comparison, only 5,354 EU citizens applied for any type of UK visa in the first three months of this year, including as short-term visitors, according to the Guardian. The British government announced on Jan. 31 this year that it was opening up the possibility for Hong Kong people eligible for BNO passports to apply for BNO residence visas in the UK. The new route allows BNO passport holders and their immediate family members to apply for this visa to enter the UK, which is valid for two 30-month periods or one five-year period. After five years, they can apply to settle in the U.K. and after another 12 months can apply for British citizenship.
In the first three months of 2021, there were 34,300 applications for BNO visas, although the path only opened for applications on Jan. 31, according to figures released Thursday by the U.K. Home Office. So far, 7,200 applications have been approved. An economic impact assessment published by the UK Home Office last year estimated that 500,000 people with BNO status and their families would arrive in the UK in the first year and that more than one million would come to settle in the UK within five years.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said, “There is no reliable way to predict how many people will move from Hong Kong to the U.K. on a long-term basis. The levels we see in these data cannot be expected to be representative of future flows. Reality may be suppressed by the new crown epidemic or may represent a larger than normal first wave due to pent-up demand.”
Samputin said, “The epidemic has had an extraordinary impact on migration, with low rates of migration from EU countries being one of its consequences. In fact, there is evidence that net migration from EU countries was actually negative last year. Combined with the impact of a more expensive and restrictive visa regime for EU citizens, not many people are coming to the UK that would make sense under post-Brexit immigration rules.”
British Home Secretary Patel said she was “delighted” that there were more than 34,000 applications for visas for Hong Kong people. She tweeted, “BNO citizens are free to build a new life in the UK. Global Britain will always be free and deliver on our promises. This new visa route underlines that.”
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