She could, as many of her former cabinet colleagues such as George Osborne have suggested, take overseas students – 163,000 came last year – out of the net migration figures on the grounds that they come to study rather than settle in the UK.
The difference between the level of immigration at 515,000 and emigration at 352,000 gives the net migration figure of 163,000.
The annual net migration figure of 244,000 remains more than double the official government target of below 100,000.
The politically sensitive net migration figure of 163,000 is 20,000 below the previous quarter and 84,000 below the 247,000 recorded in the 12 months to June 2011.
Long-term emigration over the same period was also stable, with 343,000 people going to live abroad, giving a net migration figure of 250,000.
On Friday, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said the government had no plans to change the permanent migration figure of 190,000 people a year.
When that "general concern" was confirmed by the national net migration figure of 333,000, regardless of the impact of new migrants on their own lives it gave leave campaigners lift-off.
Remain campaigners struggled against the simplistic mantra of "take back control" and the momentum shifted to leave when, a month before the referendum, the Office for National Statistics published the latest net migration figure of 333,000 – a record level.
The headline net migration figure of 246,000, which is the difference between immigration and emigration, was 81,000 lower than the 327,000 recorded in the March 2016, according to the ONS.
The headline net migration figure of 246,000, which is the difference between immigration and emigration, was 81,000 lower than the 327,000 recorded in the March 2016 according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
