LONDON – The UK has imposed visa restrictions for people arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo after it failed to step up efforts to take back deported citizens.
The Home Office has revoked fast-track visa processing and halted preferential visa treatment for the country’s diplomats and VIPs after it failed to agree new measures to make it easier to take back illegal migrants from the UK.
Shabana Mahmood previously singled out DRC, along with Namibia and Angola, for having unacceptably poor and obstructive returns processes and warned of sanctions if they did not improve their processes.
The Home Office said the countries – which make up less than 0.1 per cent of the more than 800 000 visas granted this year to June – had frustrated efforts to remove thousands of illegal migrants and criminals.
It also accused them of refusing to process paperwork and requiring individuals to sign their own documents – effectively allowing them to block their own deportations.
Angola and Namibia have since agreed to new processes, under which the UK will be able to return illegal migrants and foreign national offenders in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Mahmood warned while there had been some engagement from the DRC, she is willing to take further action if its continues to not co-operate.
A Government source said the Home Secretary ‘will not hesitate to go further and ban visas to other countries who refuse to take their citizens back’.
Mahmood said: ‘‘We expect countries to play by the rules. If one of their citizens has no right to be here, they must take them back.
‘‘I thank Angola and Namibia and welcome their co-operation. Now is the time for the Democratic Republic of Congo to do the right thing.
‘‘Take your citizens back or lose the privilege of entering our country.
‘‘This is just the start of the measures I am taking to secure our border and ramp up the removal of those with no right to be here.’’
Mahmood unveiled sweeping reforms last month aimed at deterring migrants from seeking asylum in the UK and making it easier to remove people with no right to be in the country.
The three countries threatened with a visa ban are not among the most common nationalities of migrants to enter the UK legally or illegally.
They accounted for a tiny proportion of the more than 800 000 visas granted for employment, study, family or humanitarian reasons in the year to June – 299 to those from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 273 for nationals from Angola and 140 for those from Namibia.
They made up only a handful of the illegal migrants recorded as having entered the UK through so-called ‘irregular’ routes in that timeframe, with only 11 coming from the DRC, three from Angola and none from Namibia.
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