We are deeply concerned about the growing xenophobia of the Home Office, which is harming our fellow non-EU colleagues and students and often preventing them from teaching, researching, and studying in British higher education.

As indicated in a Times Higher Education piece in January 2014 universities are being discouraged from hiring non-EU academics, many of whom are the top scholars in their field. Non-EU academic staff, especially those who have completed their PhD research in the UK, are finding themselves at the mercy of an exploitative neoliberal higher education system that is bolstered by Home Office's punitive immigration policy, making it incredibly difficult to gain a work visa despite being offered employment. In other instances, non-EU scholars are increasingly being denied visas to attend academic conferences and to work on collaborative projects with their British counterparts. We do not believe that preventing non-EU scholars from entering the UK to take part in the production of knowledge and research helps our universities to maintain their world class position.

However, the situation for non-EU international students who are already here is also appalling. While we saw British students decry the heavy-handed police involvement on campuses last year as part of the #CopsOffCampus initiative and, in particular, the horrendous treatment suffered by Defend Education Birmingham protesters on the University of Birmingham campus, little is known about police surveillance inflicted on non-EU students from a selection of countries who are forced to register with the police as demanded by their visa requirement. In some universities, most notably at Ulster University and Sunderland University, non-EU international students are subjected to biometric fingerprinting and further humiliating surveillance. The fact that non-EU academics and students have limited recourse to challenge a university for continually failing to meet its own standards as highlighted by the Justice4Sanaz campaign. This campaign speaks volumes about the nature of the once highly regarded British higher education system. We fail to understand how treating non-EU international scholars and students like criminals and limiting their human rights constitutes a welcoming and hospitable environment.

Adding insult to injury, academics are being told they are obliged to inform the Home Office if they have any suspicions that a student is breaching the conditions of his or her leave to remain in the UK, or if the student is engaging in ‘suspicious behaviour.’ The discriminatory treatment of non-EU international students doesn't stop there. Despite non-EU international students paying exorbitant tuition fees, from £14,000 to over £20,000, that in turn helps fund the studies of British students, from May 2015, students and workers from outside the EU will have to pay a ‘NHS surcharge’ of up to £200 per year before they are given a visa.

The state- and media-imposed xenophobia directed at non-EU international students has now led to increased racist verbal and physical attacks, and even outright murder, as we witnessed this summer in Essex in the case of a Saudi international PhD student at Essex University, Nahid Almanea.

Whereas in the United Kingdom, non-EU international scholars and students are viewed as taking jobs away from British workers, in the United States policy has shifted to viewing international students as an integral part of job creation and growth. As President Obama recently stated,

“Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?”

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/21/what-obama’s-immigration-executive-actions-mean-higher-education]

If the United States is willing to cultivate and provide a welcoming environment for international talent, why can't the United Kingdom do the same?

We call for an end to the current immigration restrictions placed upon non-EU international scholars and students. We believe that for a truly world class education system to exist and thrive, that it should have no borders. We call for a fairer system that does not penalise non-EU academics and students or seek to limit their contributions. Without these changes British higher education will inevitably become more insular and mediocre and unable to achieve and maintain world-class standards.