Over 1,000 international students have been forcibly removed from the UK over cheating claims in the English language test that is made mandatory for all students coming from non English speaking countries. In a fresh move against allegations of the Home Offices' unfair revocation of the students' visa issued to these international students Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, is now under mounting pressure to head off an immigration scandal that MPs have warned could be “bigger than Windrush”.
About 34,000 foreign students have had their visas cancelled or curtailed and more than 1,000 people were forcibly removed from the UK as a result of the English language testing scandal, which involved the government accusing tens of thousands of students who sat a Home Office-approved test of cheating following the BBC Panorama Investigation.
Five years have gone by and some of these students are still being targeted by immigration enforcement officers and being taken to immigration detention centres ahead of enforced removal from the UK.
Mike Gapes, the MP for Ilford South, in a statement to The Guardian has said how this is “a bigger scandal than Windrush in terms of the number of individuals removed from the country and whose livelihoods are being destroyed by anguish and despair”.
The issue of immigration has been a constant problem for the UK sincethe introduction of Theresa May's “hostile environment” policy when she was a Home Secretary in 2012.
