No fewer than 1,425 international students who gained admission to universities in the United Kingdom were denied entry at the country’s airports between 2021 and 2023.
A total of 161 Nigerians were affected, as they were removed on arrival at airports across the UK.
According to data exclusively obtained from the UK Home Office through the Freedom of Information Act, India topped the list of affected foreign students with 644, representing 45 per cent of the figure, while Nigeria followed with 11.3 per cent. Ghana is third on the list with 92 (6.46 per cent), while Bangladesh is fourth with 90 (6.32 per cent).
However, the released data, covering October 2021 to October 2023, is limited to students denied entry at the airports. It does not include international students deported by the Home Office for violating the terms of their visas, such as working beyond 20 hours weekly and academic malpractice.
The Home Office did not also specify the reasons for the removal of the foreign students.
It was gathered that some of the reasons for such decisions included the inability of students to convince the Border Force officers during checks at the airports, presentation of forged documents, and deficiency in English language usage.
An immigration lawyer based in North London, UK, Dele Olawanle, in a post on X in September 2023, decried the maltreatment of students and called on the UK Government to rein in Border Force officers, whom he said had turned themselves to admission officers.
Olawanle lamented that three students contacted him for help within three hours after facing threats of removal at the airports.
He wrote, “UK border officers have turned themselves into university officials at the point of entry by questioning students entering the UK to start their course on some aspects of the course they are going to start. If they do not answer correctly, they have their visas cancelled, and some are removed from the UK. Sad! I have had three instructions on that in the last 24 hours.
“It is not their job because most of these students were interviewed by the university before being offered a place on the course. Most of these Border Force officers have not even been to university and are not qualified to examine these foreign students on their academic knowledge.
“I can say this as I have had dealings with them for the last 24 years. Their job is to make sure the students obtain entry clearance genuinely. If you are a student coming to start your course, be prepared for immigration officers turning themselves into university examiners.”
A data analyst, Nelly Okechukwu, who claimed he narrowly escaped screening at one of the airports, also shared his experience.
He wrote, “After going through a 16-hour flight, a border officer asked for my transcript, which I presented, and this lady started asking me to tell her about a course I studied in my 200-level in the university. A university I graduated from since 2012.”
Punch
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