Officials ‘lose’ thousands of foreign students

THOUSANDS of foreign students remain unaccounted for after the Home Office showed a lack of urgency in tracing them, according to an inspection report.

The immigration watchdog warned last year that there was no process in place to monitor individuals in a category which had more than 70,000 cases, meaning the number who have stayed in the country illegally was unknown. The figure has been reduced since the issue was highlighted by David Bolt, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. But following a re-inspection, it emerged that around 16,000 overseas nationals have still not been located by immigration authorities.

However, his assessment said there had been no directly related enforcement activity, adding: “I believe that the Home Office’s approach has lacked urgency, a view that the Home Office strongly disputes. The Home Office’s case would be helped if it were to set a clear timescale for the completion of this work.”