For at least a couple of years there’s been an issue percolating away without much clarity about its extent, causes and consequences – that of international students in the UK applying for asylum either during or following their studies. Staff in universities have at times told us of a noticeable rise in cases, and we also get rumours every now and then of it being on the Home Office radar.
Over the weekend the government released for the first time some data on asylum claims by student visa holders – previously there have only been figures for successful applications, according to first visa held, which have been buried in the annual “migrant journey” report. These have not painted a particularly clear picture of the real situation.
So we now learn that, of the 108,000 who claimed asylum in the UK in 2024, 40,000 were from people who had held a visa. Within this group, student visas were the highest share of the total, with 16,000 claims – those on work visas accounted for 11,500, and 9,500 were on visitor visas (all these figures have been rounded to the nearest 500, for some reason). There’s nothing here about the proportion of claims that were successful, or even resolved.
The stats release with coordinated with an interview with home secretary Yvette Cooper on the front page of The Sunday Times, focusing on the effects of asylum claims on the government’s floundering accommodation system:
One of the things that became clear as we examined this really rather chaotic system that we inherited is that we have people who are in the asylum accommodation system who arrived in the UK on a student visa, or a work visa, and who then only claimed asylum at the end of their visa. They have then gone into the asylum accommodation system even though when they arrived in the country they said they had the funding to support themselves.
The Home Office data release highlights that “almost 10,000 people who claimed asylum after having entered on a visa were provided with asylum support in the form of accommodation at some point during 2024” – this figure isn’t broken down by visa type – and that the most common nationalities here were Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.
So what’s going on?
In the run-up to last year’s MAC review of the Graduate route, there was a rather convenient Home Office leak to the Daily Mail of the numbers of international students who had gone on to claim asylum, covering the 12 months to March 2023 – and broken down by nationality and even institution. These figures, if accurate, showed 6,136 asylum claims made in that year, so the numbers have only increased since.
The timing and the pick-up in anti-immigration media was sufficient for the Migration Advisory Committee, in its Graduate route review, to feel the need to comment, if only to damp down hopes that they would consider this as a form of “abuse of the visa system”:
We note recent reports of an increase in asylum applications from those originally coming to the UK through work and study routes. The government may deem this behaviour undesirable and unintended usage of these routes. However, coming to the UK legally on a work or study visa and proceeding to make a legitimate, admissible asylum application does not constitute abuse. If the government is concerned by the rising number of such applications they should address this issue directly – it does not relate substantively to the Graduate route.
But the issue hasn’t entirely gone away with the change of government and Labour’s relative de-politicisation of international students. In February, the BBC quoted border security and asylum minister Angela Eagle as having her eye on “those coming on work and student visas and then claiming asylum” – she pins the issue on the disorder the Conservatives left in the asylum system.
This was then followed by Yvette Cooper’s comments at the weekend, along with the new Home Office data. The home secretary was announcing an expansion of right-to-work checks to gig economy and zero-hours roles in sectors like construction, food delivery, beauty salons and courier services.
Meanwhile in Canada
There’s an instructive international comparison here – Canada. Last autumn there was controversy in certain corners of the Canadian media when it emerged that almost 12,000 asylum claims had been made by international students in 2023, rising to more than 13,600 in the first nine months of 2024.
The potential for political fallout was enough for immigration minister Marc Miller to write to the Canadian College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants over the “important and concerning issue”, saying:
I am concerned by reports that some of these students are being counselled by third parties to do so and to provide false information… I request that the College look into the possibility that licensed immigration consultants are illegitimately advising international students to claim asylum.
This took place against a backdrop of the Canadian government instituting a series of caps on international student numbers, and restrictions on post-study work, ahead of a general election this year.
Policy levers
The UK government has pledged to substantially cut the number of people in temporary accommodation with claims or appeals pending – it’s a policy objective driven both by Treasury imperatives to cut the ballooning costs and political considerations around being “tough on migration.”
If international students (or former international students) claiming asylum gains traction as an area for attention – and it’s worth reiterating that the figures show that just shy of 15 per cent of all claims in 2024 were from student visa holders – then probably the easiest policy lever for the government to pull is simply to throttle student and graduate route numbers: avoid overturning any of the restrictive policies introduced by the Conservatives, and harry away at the edges of the system to discourage any kind of return to the totals seen in 2022–23 and 2023–24.
There’s a question here, though, about whether this is really an HE-related matter. As the statement from one of the universities in the above-mentioned Daily Mail splash said at the time:
This particular issue is a result of the government’s own asylum policy, which allows visa switching in a way that is outside the direct control of the universities concerned and is not a failing of the higher education sector.
And the National Audit Office’s recent report on the skilled worker visa found that the number of asylum claims from holders of that visa had risen from 53 in 2022 to 5,300 in the first ten months of 2024. So if it’s not a phenomenon that is restricted to student visa routes, and one that in many cases is about what happens after the period of study, it would appear an over-correction for the government to take any action specifically focused on the higher education system.
But there are some issues that the government seems to have in its sights. In the Sunday Times interview, there’s a specific mention of the proof of funds that student visa applicants must demonstrate, and how this seemingly conflicts with asylum claims on economic grounds. A follow-up article suggests the government has plans to review international students’ finances “throughout” their time in the UK.
Last September Labour announced an increase in the amount that students must evidence – though it’s still far from being sufficient to live on in most places. But there are plenty of rumours about this system being gamed by agents who assist applicants by parking temporary funds in their accounts, telling them that they will in fact be able to support themselves (and pay off all the debts they’ve accrued) by working while and after studying.
It’s another example of failure to provide students with clear-cut, realistic information about visa costs leaving them open to exploitation – and an area where the sector should be arguing for more rigour and scrutiny in the proof of funds process, along with a higher sum required, rather than seeing it as a deterrent to prospective students. We’ve also previously covered – anecdotal – reports that students have been advised to apply for asylum when unable to complete degrees within the specified time limits, or potentially for other reasons such as non-payment of fees, though there’s no evidence that this is a widespread phenomenon.
So there are specific issues here for institutions to get ahead of. Whether that’s enough to move the dial remains to be seen, especially if these latest figures gain prominence and newspapers investigate promises made by agents overseas.
Protecting students
Ensuring that vulnerable people are not exploited through misinformation about how they can, supposedly, game the UK’s dysfunctional immigration system should be a priority. If nothing else, there is the pragmatic benefit of heading off further international restrictions and another round of negative HE headlines.
But more importantly, upholding the right for international students to claim asylum – as well as scientists, researchers and other staff – is of critical importance for preserving academic freedom (among many other things), not just in the UK but around the world. If the growth in claims, and the government’s flailing attempts to address it, ends up tarnishing the need for a humane, well-managed asylum process, everyone suffers. And the higher education sector being on the back foot over asylum, rather than standing up and advocating for its importance, would be a terrible turn of events.
While the Daily Mail and others might report on growing application numbers from current and former international students as evidence that the UK is not tough enough, too permissive, too generous in the legal protections and recourse it offers to those seeking asylum, the fact remains that it’s an awful system for anyone to get caught up in.
Just over a year ago in the House of Commons, the now former SNP MP Alison Thewliss reported on a a parliamentary visit to the Bibby Stockholm barge, used by the previous government for asylum accommodation:
I will take this opportunity to put on record the sadness, confusion and frustration of those on board. Those men felt that they were being punished for some unknown misdemeanour – unable to get any peace and quiet, living in impossibly close proximity to people for months at a time, with no certainty as to when that will end, and their health needs not being properly assessed. The vessel was not intended to be lived on 24/7, and despite the tabloid rhetoric, none of those I met on that boat had come on small boats. Some had been international students, forced to claim asylum when the political situation in their home countries deteriorated. One told me: ‘the longer you are in here, you turn into a person you don’t know.’ How incredibly sad it is that the UK Government see fit to treat people in that way.
