Crackdown on UK Student Visa a part of global crackdown

United Kingdom, 14th May: New UK immigration rules on UK student visas are part of a global initiative to curb unregistered immigration advisors who help bogus students seek immigration in the UK.

The international initiative by the British Council involves countries including the US, Australia and the UK to keep bogus students out of these nations. There have been widespread concerns about unscrupulous immigration agents having a network in several nations including the UK.

Meanwhile, universities in the UK say that most of the immigration agents are, in fact, legitimate and integral part of spotting international students.

In order to crackdown heavily on bogus and unscrupulous immigration agents who help people seek student visas by arranging fake documents, UK immigration department has introduced stricter student visa rules.

In one such strategy, issuance of UK student visas for applicants hailing form Nepal, Bangladesh and North India were temporarily frozen following a suspicious increase in the number of UK student visa applications from these nations.

Moreover, the recent crackdown on illegal immigrants is also aimed to stop those who enter into foreign nations with terrorist intentions. It’s being feared that foreign students who genuinely want to study in the UK or other nations are being misused and duped by unauthorized immigration agents.

In the first inaugural meeting of the global effort to come down heavily on bogus agents, representatives of various nations including the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Irish Republic and New Zealand participated. They are expected to share information about rogue unauthorized agents working in different nations. 

There is an increasing need for different competitor nations to come forward and join hands to work in collaboration since various colleges and universities have to depend on legal and authorized immigration advisor for getting genuine foreign students, the director of higher education for the British Council, Pat Killingley stated.

UK has thousands of individual immigration agents working in the nation and at least 4 out of 5 universities in the UK have their dependence on these authorized agents for bringing genuine foreign students.

Hence, the need is to put a noose on dishonest immigration agents in the nations, added Killingley.