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India-UK mobility agreement addresses issue of illegal migrants
The MMP will facilitate legal movement of students and professionals and enhance bilateral cooperation to combat illegal migration. It also created a new scheme whereby up to 3,000 young Indian professionals can avail employment opportunities in the UK every year for a period of two years.
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The migration and mobility partnership (MMP) agreement signed by India and the UK has helped address an irritant in bilateral relations by setting down processes for the return of illegal migrants from Britain, people familiar with developments said on Wednesday.
Negotiations on the MMP, crucial for ensuring greater access to the UK for skilled Indian professionals, had been underway for some time and the memorandum of understanding was signed by external affairs minister S Jaishankar and UK home secretary Priti Patel on Tuesday, coinciding with the India-UK Summit.
The MMP will facilitate legal movement of students and professionals and enhance bilateral cooperation to combat illegal migration. It also created a new scheme whereby up to 3,000 young Indian professionals can avail employment opportunities in the UK every year for a period of two years.
The agreement was a “good step forward” to address an “irritant” in bilateral ties, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. The British side had been insisting in the past on the return of illegal migrants to India, while the Indian side had said adequate time was needed to comprehensively confirm the identity and nationality of such persons, the people said.
“Now, a compromise or a process solution has been found, and this will address certain misunderstandings, such as a perception that the Indian side didn’t want to take back the illegal migrants,” said one of the people cited above.
British high commissioner Alex Ellis told a virtual news briefing on Wednesday that the MMP has mechanisms and timelines for the return of illegal migrants and doesn’t set any targets. “You need to have efficient mechanisms...If you look at the MMP, it sets timelines by which you have to achieve some parts of the processes,” he said.
The MMP also specifies the documentation that can be used to prove the Indian nationality of the illegal migrants, he said. The British side wants to address the return of illegal migrants “as swiftly as is legally correct and possible to do”, he added.
“Our aim is to have a flow of talented people between the two countries and...India is by far the biggest user of work visas, of any country in the world, for the UK.
Nearly 50% of all work visas go to Indian nationals,” Ellis said.
Referring to the MMP facilitating the entry of up to 3,000 young professionals every year, Ellis said: “India is the first visa national country with whom we have offered that partnership.”
Under the agreement, Indian nationals who are undocumented, in distress abroad or are not being given nationality or residence permits have to be taken back. A joint statement issued after the virtual summit said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Boris Johnson welcomed the signing of the MMP and expressed confidence in the benefits it will have in facilitating legal movement of professionals and combating “organised immigration crime”.
