UK tells thousands of foreign students not to overstay visas, else they will be…

The UK Home Office has launched the new campaign in response to what it has called an “alarming” spike in the number of international students arriving legally on student visas then claiming asylum when they expire.

As part of the government campaign, the Home Office is directly contacting the international students by text and email.

British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC that some foreign students are claiming asylum “even when things haven’t changed in their home country”.

Although the number of student visa holders applying for asylum has dropped from the year before, it is nearly six times as many as in 2020, showed the department data, according to the report.

According to Home Office data, nearly 13% of asylum applications in the year to June, around 14,800, came from people in the UK on a study visa.

Pakistan was the most common country of origin, responsible for 5,700 of these applications, followed by students from India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, reported BBC.

““If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused. Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support. If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave. If you don’t, we will remove you,” reads the full message, according to the Guardian.

In May this year, the Home Office had announced its plans to tighten rules that aim to stop migrants using university study as a way to enter the UK.

Under the plans, the visa refusal and course completion rates that universities have to meet in order not to risk losing their ability to sponsor future visas are to be made stricter.

UK Asylum Reform

Recently, Yvette Cooper said the UK’s asylum system needs “substantial reforms” as she laid out plans to reduce record flows of migrants arriving in small boats across the English Channel.

Cooper said the UK government would create an independent body to deal with asylum appeals, increase detention and returns capacity, temporarily suspend refugee family reunion routes and change the way certain parts of the European Convention on Human Rights is interpreted.

“The overall system remains outdated, sclerotic and unfair,” Cooper said, referring to immigration appeals. “We will shortly set out more radical reforms to modernize the asylum system and to boost our border security.”