That this Annual
General Meeting of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social
Control, representing over 1,000 members in more than 50 countries:
- values
international collaboration between academics and students at all levels,
and condemns the narrow and short-term oriented intervention of the UK
Border Agency (UKBA) into higher education in the UK as setting a
dangerous and destructive precedent;
- abhors
the ideological and administrative targeting of overseas students in the
UK in attempting to reduce nett positive immigration in order to pander to
anti-immigration lobbies;
- observes
that the imposition of these policies effectively positions all overseas
students as potential immigration fraudsters and requires them to prove their
innocence. At the same time it inappropriately positions educational
institutions as engaging in bogus operations unless they can prove
otherwise;
- protests
that the UKBA’s decision to withdraw the ‘highly trusted sponsor status’
of London Metropolitan University (LMU) collectively punishes legitimate
overseas students for the apparent administrative shortcomings of the
university administration;
- notes
that checks and approvals for the issue of visas is not the proper function
of higher education institutions and objects to the Home Office imposing
these roles on universities as a cost-cutting measure and to address
under-staffing in the UKBA;
- demands
that the British government ensure that overseas students currently enrolled
at LMU be allowed to enter or re-enter or continue their stay in the UK
and to pursue the study in the UK for which they have been accepted in
good faith and which they have a right to expect.
That this resolution be
sent to the |Home Office, issued as a media release, and be placed on the
European Group’s website.
[Carried unanimously.]
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