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The Home Office has made a sudden U-turn on its decision to ban the young children of an Oxford University professor, Amber Murrey, from living with her in the UK – the second time in a week it has reversed a visa refusal for the child of an Oxford academic following reports in the Guardian.
Now the university and the elite Russell Group of universities, of which Oxford is a member, are calling on the Home Office to change its rules on child visas.
But some angry overseas academics say that other universities are not doing enough to fight their corner against the Home Office.
And academics say the government’s aggressive tactics are putting off talented international applicants from moving to the UK.
Prof Murrey’s case, revealed three weeks ago, sparked outrage. Murrey, an associate professor of geography, described her “complete disbelief” at learning the Home Office had rejected applications for dependent child visas for her daughters, aged four and nine, to join her in Oxford. Her husband has business commitments in Cameroon, where he is from, and both parents had given written consent for the girls to be with their mother until the family could live together.
Last week Murrey, who had filed an appeal to the Home Office on the grounds that they had not read the evidence properly, received a letter saying the visas would be issued after all. No explanation was given for the change of heart.
She says: “It is wonderful news, but I will feel nervous until I actually receive the visas. My daughters will be here to start school next month. They will both be very happy to be back with me.”
Just days before, the Home Office had reversed a similar decision to refuse a visa to the nine-year-old son of Dr Wesam Hassan, a GP from Egypt beginning a PhD at Oxford. It had ignored the fact that Hassan’s husband is a humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations in Yemen, designated a “non-family station” because of the conflict there.
Her son, having been shut out of the UK, has been living with her sister in Egypt. She says the separation has caused “trauma” for her family.
Universities say these are far from isolated cases, with many other international academics facing similar obstacles when trying to bring their children into the country. Oxford University lobbied the Home Office hard on Murrey’s behalf, including suggesting that the government was violating European law on children’s rights by splitting up her family.
However, not all academics have enjoyed such support. Last week the Guardian reported on plans to deport Dr Furaha Asani, a young academic at Leicester University, to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world – which she had never visited.
Leicester has not offered Asani any legal or other support. The university said it was “committed to inclusivity” but unable to influence Home Office decisions.
Mark Pendleton, lecturer in Japanese studies at Sheffield University and co-founder of the campaign group International and Broke, says: “If being an international university is to mean anything, it must at the very least mean defending non-UK staff when they come under threat of deportation and providing them with material support.”
He says migrant staff have been asking universities for help with Home Office problems for years and getting “little to no support”.
Ben Moore, immigration policy analyst at the Russell Group, says that although the government has sent some positive signals about supporting science after Brexit, the rule on child visas “appears to tell highly sought-after academics ‘We want you, but your family aren’t welcome’. That doesn’t work.”
An Oxford spokesperson says: “We are delighted to see that the Home Office has reversed its ruling [in the cases of Murrey and Hassan]. We hope the government will now review its policy on visas for dependants, which has a disproportionate impact on women with children, as well as a detrimental effect on British universities’ ability to attract the very best academics from abroad.”
Murrey says: “I know how widespread this is just from the emails I’ve received. Every person has a complicated story, but it is always heartbreaking.” She argues that many cases never come to light because families simply decide not to come to the UK when their children’s visas are denied.
In both of Murrey and Hassan’s cases the visas were refused because of a Home Office rule that a child may only be given a visa if both parents are living in the UK, unless the parent living here has sole responsibility.
Dr Vicky Lewis, who runs a consultancy advising universities on international strategy, says: “I have heard numerous examples of institutions not being able to recruit the people they’d like because of the hostile environment and the hurdles people have to jump through. It can mean losing the best candidates.”
The Academy of Social Sciences is calling for the government to strike a special sector deal making universities “trusted sponsors” of international staff, with a much lighter-touch system and no minimum salary thresholds.
Sharon Witherspoon, head of policy at the academy, says they have heard many cases of researchers being refused visas to work in the UK, foreign academics being blocked from attending conferences, and researchers turning down UK job offers because of the visa costs or bureaucracy.
“Aside from the individual injustices, this system is far too difficult to navigate and doesn’t support knowledge or research,” she says. “The rules are ever more complicated and Byzantine and it is easier and easier for people to fall foul of them.”
Dr Jess Perriam, an Australian lecturer in social science at the Open University, says that both academics and universities have become terrified of the Home Office.
“If you’ve come over here as a student since 2012 you are acutely aware of how precarious your situation is. The Home Office rules are Kafkaesque and there is a fear for both the academic and the university that you won’t know you’ve done something wrong until the Home Office comes knocking.”
The Home Office says its child visa policy is designed to protect children and the family unit, but it keeps all rules under constant review. A spokesperson said: “We welcome international academics from across the globe.”
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