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I have lived, studied and worked in the UK for over 10 years. But earlier this month, the Home Office refused my application for indefinite leave to remain, which would have given me the right to settle in the UK. This has left me with a huge degree of uncertainty about my career and future here in the UK, with my current visa due to expire on 30 January 2020.
The Home Office took five weeks to arrive at a decision despite my “super priority” application (which promises a decision within 24 hours for an additional £800). But I had only 14 calendar days to absorb the shock, find lawyers and file an appeal.
My application for settlement was rejected on grounds of “excess absences” from the country. The Home Office decided to not exercise discretion for the time I spent conducting essential fieldwork in Delhi for my PhD at the University of Cambridge. In the refusal letter, they erroneously called it my “field of work” and said that I had failed to provide “exceptional reasons” for my “out of time” application, even though I had actually applied before the expiry of my current visa. The glaring errors in my refusal letter are alarming but not surprising. Many academics in the recent past (including academics at Oxford, Leicester, St Andrews, Glasgow and Durham) have fallen victim to the Home Office’s haphazard, arbitrary and unreasonable decision-making.
Since my case has been reported widely, I have been approached by several individuals with very similar cases who have fought and won drawn-out, complicated and expensive battles against the Home Office. While some of these cases have had media attention, many others have not. The common reason for refusal has been the applicant spending time out of the country doing essential research that ultimately contributes to UK universities and the economy. Rather than carefully considering and respecting case precedent, the Home Office spends public money on appeals that it mostly loses.
Boris Johnson has reiterated his desire to attract “the brightest and the best” to Britain – a common theme in the government’s political rhetoric on immigration. And in his spring 2019 statement, the then chancellor, Philip Hammond, made specific reference to the commitment to make overseas research activity count as residence in the country for the purposes of settlement, so that researchers are not unfairly penalised for time spent overseas conducting vital fieldwork.
The Home Office has, with effect from October, translated this into policy for tier 2 (general work) visa holders. However, it still arbitrarily refuses, as in my case, to take this principle into account for settlement applications under the long residence route.
The refusal to grant settlement is only one example of the hostile environment that academics are facing. We also face mounting costs associated with migration, which many universities do not reimburse. In the past 10 years, the costs of applying for a tier 2 visa have almost quadrupled to a minimum of £2,200 per applicant. Some of that is accounted for by the introduction of an annual surcharge for migrants to use the NHS, which the Conservatives plan to further increase to £625 per year. This is an unfair charge: migrant workers, many of whom work for the NHS themselves, pay taxes and national insurance, and are therefore effectively paying twice towards the NHS.
The government may be charging much more for visa applications, but this has not resulted in more efficient immigration processes. In the past decade, the outsourcing of immigration services has also intensified. In addition to fees of £3,208 that I paid in my most recent application, I had to pay £100 for an appointment at a centre in East Croydon, run by the company Sopra Steria, to submit my biometric information. The cost of these sorts of appointments was once included in the Home Office application fee. The appointment to submit biometric information simply consisted of me submitting my details at a self-service machine. Sopra Steria does not even issue a confirmation that the application has been submitted or offer online tracking.
Like many others, I was attracted to come to the UK by its international reputation for academic excellence. In the decade that I have spent in the country, growing as an individual and as a scholar, I have met and learned from people from all over the world. As university staff begin to strike over pensions, pay and equality this week, it is worth asking where universities in the UK are headed. Almost 2,000 academics have signed an open letter in support of my case. The hostility and uncertainty that academics like me face – “global researchers” when we are desirable; “migrants” when we are not – is disconcerting, and it risks driving talent and funding away from Britain.
• Asiya Islam is a junior research fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge
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