Hostile environment policy which affected thousands of foreign students in the UK (Asian Voice) (11 June 2018)

The Home Office have employed a strategy to unfairly revoke thousands of foreign students’ visas who they allege have cheated on the Test of English for International Communications. Following a BBC Panorama documentary in 2014 exposing cheating in the test which foreign students must pass as one of the visa requirements, the government began an investigation using English Testing Services which indentified more than 33,000 invalid tests. This led the governement to revoke more than 7000 student’s visas by 2016, basing their decision on an automated voice analysis system, which proved to be wrong in 20% of cases.Tamana Aziz, as a Director and solicitor in the immigration department at Duncan Lewis, has extensive experience representing individuals wrongly removed from the UK. She writes that any students affected by this policy should get in touch: 'We recommend all students who were affected by this policy and removed/deported from the UK to seek legal advice. They may have a case against the government for unlawful curtailment of their leave and removal from the UK.'