Building a fortress around British academia (from Spiked)
I barely heard any opposition on BBC Radio 4's news bulletins when the Government's pointless and self-serving student visa "restrictions" were announced a few days ago, so it's good to see that Spiked has come up with the goods, as usual [despite not being paid for by a licence fee!]. The student visa bureaucracy, and indeed most of the current UK immigration procedure, is incompetent at best and malicious at worst, and helping no-one. The story quoted below is totally plausible:
One US student who started a Finance Masters at the London School of Economics in October 2009 almost lost her chance to do so when, although she had submitted all the necessary documentation in June 2009, she was informed in July that proof of sufficient funds now needed to be held in a bank account under her own name (rather than her parents’ account, as before). She did this, but was told in August that they were still expecting the rest of her documentation. So she flew to the regional processing centre, and only managed to resolve an absurd situation because she talked her way into the building to find the required documentation lying on a desk. Had she not, she would have had to restart the whole process and repay the application fee.
Basically, the latest rule changes will only harm genuine students; "bogus" immigrants and criminals will always find another way to get into the country. But as long as the Government gets good headlines, why should they care about how they're ruining the lives of powerless young foreigners? Apparently this report from the Manifesto Club covers this stuff in greater detail, but I can already predict with high levels of certainty that it was all eminently preventable.
Update: By a happy coincidence I found out that the Parliamentary Ombudsman (who is a woman) has very recently published a report about the UK Border Agency, who she does not describe as a bunch of incompetent nincompoops, but rather "have consistently generated a large number of complaints to the Ombudsman". She includes in her report case studies like the following (which I quote from the accompanying press release):
In the case of Mr P, a Jamaican man who was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 1990, it took three and a half years for the Agency to provide` him with a No Time Limit (NTL) stamp confirming his right to stay in the UK for his new 2004 Jamaican passport.
During this time Mr P was threatened with deportation and missed the funerals of his father and sister and was unable to visit his ill mother as he was afraid he would not be allowed back into the country.
The Ombudsman upheld Mr P’s complaint. The Agency agreed to apologise unreservedly and he received fee refunds of £755 and £2,500 in compensation for the severe distress, inconvenience and embarrassment.
That is an extremely small amount of compensation for such a horrendous experience. Shouldn't this sort of behaviour be a criminal offence? The immigration system is indeed broken, but not in the way the politicians keep saying.
