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Some relief, no real change

In Britain’s current climate of mounting public hostility to foreigners, there is something to cheer about the move to show leniency towards foreign students who may have genuinely overstayed their visa. They can now hope to sleep more peacefully, without fearing that dreaded midnight knock — as immigration officials have been told not to rush into deporting every foreign student with an expired visa unless there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing. They have al so been instructed to take into account the circumstances in each case to avoid arbitrary “enforced removals.” The move follows complaints that even students who faced genuine delays in renewing their visas found themselves threatened with deportation. In the case of a Chinese woman student of Manchester University, the Chief Executive of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), Lin Homer, had to intervene personally to halt her deportation after it emerged that her visa renewal application was being processed when she was served “removal” orders. Ms Homer said that instances of this kind amounted to “taking our toughness a stage too far.” The case prompted BIA to sit up and a decision was taken to rein in the overzealous enforcement officials. The xenophobic Right has been quick to dub it an “invitation” to illegal immigration with the Tories accusing the government of turning a “blind eye to those who have no right to stay in the U.K.”

That’s clearly over the top. The apparent leniency does not signal any change in immigration policy towards foreign students. It is an administrative readjustment meant to make deportation procedures seem less cruel and arbitrary. The tough immigration rules, introduced in 2007, ostensibly to check the alleged abuse of student visas, remain in place. A more stringent regime is in the offing. Obtaining a student visa will become more difficult. To ensure that foreign students do not overstay, universities will be required to police them effectively. But Britain’s cash-strapped universities desperately need foreign students who cough up four or five times what British students pay — they contribute an estimated five billion pounds to the economy every year. Universities U.K., which represents vice-chancellors, has warned that new rules plus the frequent increases in student visa fee would make Britain less attractive for foreign students.

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