Oxford student is told he can stay in Britain
A TALENTED student who faced losing his place at Oxford University after being threatened with deportation has won his battle to stay in Britain.
Zimbabwean-born Brian White, who has lived in the country for six years with his adoptive UK parents, said he was ‘over the moon’ after he was finally granted permission to remain.
The 21-year-old straight-A student from Wolverhampton had feared he would miss out on studying chemistry at Oxford when he was told he did not have indefinite leave to remain in Britain. But after a public outcry, the Home Office yesterday confirmed it had changed Mr White’s immigration status to let him stay as long as he likes.
More than 100,000 people signed a petition launched last week to help keep him in the UK. West Midlands police and crime commissioner David Jamieson, who had called for the case to be fast-tracked, hailed the decision to let him stay as ‘a victory for common sense after a situation which should never have arisen’.
Mr White said: ‘This is the result I dreamt of. Words can’t describe how happy I am.’ He thanked Mr Jamieson and ‘everybody else who helped make this possible’. His case was also backed his local MP, Labour’s Eleanor Smith.
The student was brought up in an orphanage in Zimbabwe until he was six years old. He was then adopted by his parents and spent several years with them in Botswana before the family moved to the UK when he was 15.
But he was not granted indefinite leave to remain by the Home Office, meaning he could have been deported back to his country of birth. He had been due to start at Oxford last year after achieving four A*s at A-level. However, he was refused entry after reportedly being told his permission to remain in the UK had expired.
Mr White then learnt that his place to study chemistry at Lady Margaret Hall was due to expire. It was when he tried to take it up that he found he was ineligible for student finance because of his immigration status. He was able to defer his place for 12 months, and had been under pressure to get permission to remain before the start of the new academic year.
Sharon Bishop, a teacher at Highfields School, Wolverhampton, which Mr White attended after arriving in the UK, said: ‘When I heard the news I burst into tears – and I never cry. We are absolutely thrilled. Now we have three weeks to pack and get him off to Oxford for the start of the term.’
UK couple’s adopted son wins a place at Oxford... then faces deportation From the Mail, Aug 30