UK Best and Brightest Visa Favors Elite
Reuters reports that Britain’s “High Potential Individual” visa program allows graduates from 37 top-rated world universities in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States to come to the country for two years even if they do not have a job offer.
The New York Times notes, however, that a majority of universities on the list are in the United States and that few, if any, countries are from India, Africa, or Latin America. This has led to charges of “elitism.”
According to the government, the purpose of the policy is to create “a highly desirable and able pool of mobile talent from which U.K. employers can recruit” and drive economic growth and technological advances (see announcement). It does not cap the number of applicants who would be accepted. Graduates with Ph.D.s would be allowed to stay for three years.
“We want the businesses of tomorrow to be built here today,” Rishi Sunak, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a statement.
The program is in line with Britain’s post-Brexit visa policy, which has made entry easier for high-skilled workers and harder for those considered low-skilled ones, as well as asylum seekers. Visa pathways include a skilled worker visa for people who have received a job offer in Britain, a visa for people considered a “leader or potential leader” in certain fields, and a program to allow international students who graduated from British universities to stay for at least two years.
MHC