1,500 students face visa probes every month

Universities and other sponsors of international students reported at least 27,121 migrants to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in the 18 months leading up to August last year, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act showed.

Study is the most common reason for migrants coming to the UK, with three in four of the 228,000 who came to the UK for study last year coming from outside the EU.

Ministers were accused in July of rushing reforms aimed at tightening restrictions on student visas.

The Commons Home Affairs Select Committee warned the Government’s reforms aimed at cracking down on abuses of the system could cost the economy £3.6bn in a “worst-case scenario”, including loss of tuition fees and visa fee income, as well as a reduction in students and their dependants able to come to the UK.

The Manifesto Club campaign group, which obtained yesterday’s figures, said the stringent visa controls were forcing UK academics to spy on their own students, eroding academic autonomy and damaging relationships between students and staff.

In its Students Under Watch report, the group said: “Universities are reporting large numbers of international students to the UKBA.

“The agency asks sponsors to email any suspicions about students; each notification can include information about several students.”

Between March 2009 and August last year, the UKBA received 27,121 notifications from education providers, the equivalent of more than 1,500 a month, the figures showed.

The group’s director Josie Appleton said: “Academics are not border agents, and they should not be dragooned into spying on their students.

“The UKBA now has rights of entry to any university campus, which is a major threat to academic autonomy. We call for a more proportionate system, which recognises the historic autonomy of the university.”

Ealier this year official figures showed that plummeting numbers of people leaving Britain to live abroad and the continued influx of migrants from eastern Europe led to a 21 per cent increase in immigration last year.

Net migration from countries which joined the EU in May 2004 rose almost eight-fold last year to 39,000 from 5,000 in 2009, the Office for National Statistics said.

The coalition Government instituted a package of measures upon taking power, including measures to limit economic migration and to make changes to student visas.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said at the time these would ensure “we attract the brightest and best while tackling widespread abuse of the system”.

The general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), Sally Hunt, said: “The relationship between staff and students is an incredibly important one that is built on trust and must not be jeopardised by fears that lecturers may be spying on students.

“Successive governments have had plans to turn lecturers into spooks overwhelmingly rejected by the academic community.”

Last year more than £12m was paid out in legal costs and compensation to asylum seekers and other immigrants.

The UK Border Agency paid £14.2m in compensation, legal costs and ex gratia payments, up almost £2m on the previous year, the agency’s annual report for 2010-11 revealed.

Earlier this year the Yorkshire Post revealed that several universities in the region feared that a tougher English language test being proposed would prevent some students from sitting foundation years and English language courses in Yorkshire as a route into doing a full degree.