Can I stay in Britain?

Brexit Britain, for all its flaws, has been welcoming to me. When the UK was a member of the European Union, the only way to control immigration was to crack down on non-EU visas. Ten years ago, Americans like me who studied in Britain and wanted to stay needed to earn £35,000 a year (which would be £47,000 now). That was unrealistic for a recent graduate. After Brexit, Boris Johnson brought back the old post-study visa, giving us two years to find work and requiring a more achievable minimum salary of £26,000. Finally, international students who won places at British universities could meet their EU equals as, well, equals. We had a realistic chance of staying here to work, live and contribute.

The Boris visa was introduced at a time when Brexit was expected to lower immigration levels. As things turned out, the long recovery from lockdown and furlough led to a shortage of native workers and as a result, net migration reached three times pre-Brexit levels.