Britain's record immigration level is FINALLY starting to fall

• UK gave 139,100 visas to three main groups of legal migrants – down from 184k

Britain’s record immigration level is finally starting to fall, with the number of foreign workers and students arriving here in the first three months of the year falling amid a visa crackdown.

The UK has granted 139,100 visas to skilled workers, students and their families, and health and care workers since January – a sharp decrease on the 184,000 that were issued in the first quarter of 2023.

These groups were handed 1.13 million visas during 2023 and represented the majority of migration to the country.

The latest figures come after the first asylum seeker was deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s migrant crackdown yesterday.

The migrant, whose name is unknown, was flown out of the UK yesterday evening and arrived in Kigali. He was put on a commercial flight and given around £3,000 from the British taxpayer to help relocate under the terms of a deal with Rwanda.

Britain’s record immigration level is finally starting to fall, with the number of foreign workers and students arriving here in the first three months of the year falling amid a visa crackdown (pictured: a Border Force ship in the Channel)

The latest figures come after the first asylum seeker was deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s migrant crackdown yesterday

The UK has granted 139,100 visas to skilled workers, students and their families, and health and care workers since January – a sharp decrease on the 184,000 that were issued in the first quarter of 2023 (pictured: the Home Office)

A migrant was put on a commercial flight today and given around £3,000 from the British taxpayer to help relocate under the terms of a deal with Rwanda (pictured: a migrant dinghy in the Channel last week)

The Hope Hostel in Rwanda (pictured) is one of the locations migrants will be sent to

First asylum-seeker deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s migrant crackdown

The first asylum seeker has been deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s migrant crackdown.

The migrant, whose name is unknown, was flown out of the UK yesterday evening and arrived in Kigali.

He was put on a commercial flight and given around £3,000 from the British taxpayer to help relocate under the terms of a deal with Rwanda.

It marks the first time the government has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country.

The man’s attempt to stay in Britain was rejected at the end of 2023, before he accepted the offer to start a new life in the central African nation.

It is thought the first deportation flights to Rwanda will take off in the next 10 to 12 weeks, according to the Prime Minister, with the Guardian reporting migrants were being detained across the UK from Sunday.

A particularly stark drop was seen in the number of foreign students applying to bring relatives to Britain, with just 6,700 visas issued to family members of those studying over here compared with 32,900 in the first three months of last year – a decrease of 80 per cent.

Meanwhile, the number of foreign students applying for a visa fell from 72,800 to 40,700, The Times reports.

Curbs which bar most foreign students bringing dependants to Britain while they study came into force on January 1.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said: said: ‘This data shows a significant fall in numbers on the first of our measures to take effect.’

The figures, published by the Home Office yesterday, also show an 83 per cent decline in the number of visas granted to health and care workers in the month of March, from 14,300 in 2023 to just 2,400 this year.

However, there seems to have been a last-minute rush for visas by relatives of foreign care workers, who were barred from bringing dependants from March 11, with numbers rising from 44,200 in the first quarter of 2023 to 49,300 this year.

The numbers also show that 41,600 health and care visas were handed out in August last year, the highest month displayed in the new data.

The encouraging figures are good news for Rishi Sunak, who has put migration policy at the centre of his bid to win a General Election this year.

The full effect of the schemes introduced this year are unlikely to be seen for another few months but the Prime Minister will hope the latest data is an indication he is on course to achieve his aim of cutting annual numbers by 300,000

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