{"id":338795,"date":"2025-12-28T06:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/338795\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T06:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T06:49:06","slug":"uk-restricts-dr-congo-visas-over-migrant-return-policy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/338795\/","title":{"rendered":"UK restricts DR Congo visas over migrant return policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A government source said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would not hesitate to ban visas for other countries refusing to take citizens back.<\/p>\n

The Home Office said Angola and Namibia agreeing to improve their processes marked the “first delivery success from last month’s asylum reforms”.<\/p>\n

The government had warned it would stop granting visas to people from Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if their governments did not rapidly improve co-operation on removals.<\/p>\n

A Home Office source said the agreements could see thousands of people removed and deported.<\/p>\n

Under the government’s changes to the UK’s asylum system<\/a>, refugee status will become temporary, guaranteed housing support for asylum seekers will end and new capped “safe and legal routes” into the UK will be created.<\/p>\n

Announcing the changes last month, Mahmood had warned visa penalties would be applied to countries that failed to co-operate with the returns policies, including an “emergency brake” on visas for countries with high asylum claims until they take back citizens in the UK illegally.<\/p>\n

The Home Office had said that returns from the DRC, Angola and Namibia were being frustrated – with paperwork not being processed or people being required to sign their own documents – giving them an effective veto.<\/p>\n

It had warned that the three countries faced penalties for their “unacceptably poor and obstructive returns processes”.<\/p>\n

It said there had been some engagement by the DRC but “unless co-operation rapidly improves” further measures could be imposed, including the possibility of a complete visa ban on people from the country coming to the UK.<\/p>\n

Home Secretary 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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A government source said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood would not hesitate to ban visas for other countries refusing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-338795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}