Home Secretary Theresa May
Foreign students – including Turkish nationals – could be sent back home as soon as their universities studies finish under the Home Secretary’s plans.
Theresa May was reported in this week’s Sunday Times to be considering the hardline measure as a way to reduce immigration from countries outside of the European Union.
The newspaper reported that Mrs May wants a future Conservative government to “move towards zero net student migration” by sending home those who come to Britain on student visas.
At present students are permitted to remain in the UK after their courses if they are applying for another type of visa, like a work permit.
A source close to the Home Secretary told The Sunday Times: “Making sure immigrants leave Britain at the end of their visa is as important a part of running a fair and efficient immigration system as controlling who comes here in the first place.
“Theresa is pressing for the next Conservative manifesto to contain a policy that will make sure that anybody coming here on a student visa will have to leave the country in order to apply for a new visa of any kind.
“She wants to make the colleges and universities that sponsor foreign students responsible for ensuring their departure.
“She wants to be able to fine colleges and universities with low departure rates and deprive the worst of them of their right to sponsor foreign students.”
For Labour, the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Theresa May is flailing around with her immigration policy in chaos. Her net migration target is in tatters, illegal immigration and exploitation are getting worse, she’s given citizenship to serious criminals and the only answer she can come up with is a few more restrictions on the overseas university students who bring billions of investment into Britain.
“More does need to be done to stop people overstaying illegally when their visas run out – whether they arrived on student visas, work visas or tourist visas.
“But the answer to that isn’t to prevent highly skilled overseas graduates getting legal work visas to fill shortages in fields like science or medicine here.”
