NUS stands up for international students

The National Union of Students (NUS) has started a petition against the Home Office’s treatment of international students.

The campaign is entitled “Give the Home Office the Yellow Card”.

On its webpage, the NUS stated that they were concerned that international students were being treated as a “political football” with “harsh conditions on studying in the UK and poor service provided by the Home Office’s agencies.”

The NUS attributed the poor treatment of international students to the government’s aim of reducing net migration from the “hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands”.

In attempts to reduce the poor treatment of international students, the NUS has called on the government to remove foreign students from net migration statistics.

In its petition, it also called on students to send in letters of complaint to the Home Office. The petition has already attracted over 800 signatures, with its aim to achieve 1000 signatures.

Shareen Rikraj, first-year Psychology undergraduate from America and Singapore, voiced her complaints on the poor service she received in applying for her visa.

She told the Boar that she remained an ‘illegal student’ in the first six weeks of university as a result of delays in her visa.

She said: “[my second visa] was applied for within the UK and took 6 weeks, the third was also within the UK and took almost 8 weeks.

“They never gave me an explanation, and calling them was difficult…”

Shareen explained how she emailed the Home Office thrice before she finally received her visa a week after her third email.

“It’s really ridiculous given I applied after the ‘university rush’ and it got to the point with both universities that I couldn’t register for class, go to the library etc.”

Visa applications for the majority of Hong Kong students, however, did not seem to be as much of an inconvenience.

When asked whether or not she experienced problems with her visas, Tiffany Wong, first-year Accounting and Finance undergraduate from Hong Kong, replied: “not really, it’s quite on time… It’s quite straightforward after getting all the annoying documents done.”

Hong Kong students Shirley Ying and Michelle Chan agreed, saying that visa applications became easier this year.

When asked about this, Shirley, first-year Economics undergraduate, explained: “Two years ago, you had to prove that you were financially able. You had to have a minimum amount of money in your bank account, and not just at one time, but every single day.

“My parents were frustrated by this as they liked to move their money around different bank accounts.”

In a survey conducted by the Boar, it was revealed that approximately three in four Hong Kong students at Warwick did not need student visas and that about 40 percent of the international students surveyed held British Citizen passports.

Whether or not this reflects the government’s success in reducing migration of ‘foreign’ students is debatable.

A spokesperson for the University said of the NUS campaign: “The University continues to speak to and lobby ministers on immigration issues [regarding] international students.

“However there continue to be areas of how immigration regulation relates to students from a range of countries that concern us [and] we will press ministers on [this] in parallel to NUS’s own campaign.”