May hails purge of bogus foreign students

A CRACKDOWN on bogus colleges has stopped overseas students driving up immigration figures, Theresa May has said.

Speaking during a trade trip to China, the Prime Minister attempted to end the row about including student numbers in regular migration data.

She said Home Office efforts to stop migrants posing as students while really looking for work had largely been rooted out so their movements “don’t have a longterm impact on the numbers.” Her remarks follow a bitter row between ministers about the inclusion of student numbers.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd is among senior Tories who have argued foreign student data drives up immigration figures, hampering government attempts to keep the annual target of net migration below 100,000.

Some ministers want rules to change so the students are no longer counted. But Mrs May said she was against changing them and pointed out that the international definition of a migrant demanded it.

She added: “Something like 900 colleges are no longer bringing in overseas students because all too often they were being brought in to work rather than for education.

“So actually once you see that abuse out of the system...you actually wash through the numbers so they don’t have a long-term impact on numbers.”