Nigerians to pay £3,000 to enter UK

Visitors from 'high risk' countries in Africa and
Asia will have to put up a £3,000 cash bond
to enter Britain.
The money will be kept by the Government if
visitors do not return home by the time their
visas expire.
A pilot scheme, introduced by Home
Secretary Theresa May, will target hundreds
of people coming to Britain on six-month visit
visas from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana,
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The countries have been picked for their high
number of visa applications and what the
Government sees as relatively high levels of
immigration abuse and fraud, reports the
Sunday Times.
The bonds, to be introduced from November,
will only apply to non-EU migrants, otherwise
they would fall foul of European rights to free
movement.
'This is the next step in making sure our
immigration system is more selective,
bringing down net migration from the
hundreds of thousands to the tens of
thousands while still welcoming the brightest
and the best to Britain,' Mrs May told the
Sunday Times.
'In the long run we're interested in a system
of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers
costs if a foreign national has used our public
services.'
A second scheme will cover countries such as
Kenya, the newspaper reports, which are
considered to be lower-risk because
immigration officials have fewer doubts about
migrants' plans to return home.
About 2.2million people are granted visas to
enter Britain every year. Last year 296,000
people from India were granted six-month
visas, as were 101,000 from Nigeria, 53,000
from Pakistan and 14,000 apiece from
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.