Post by Focus on Jun 6, 2013 8:07:01 GMT
* Figures come from a snapshot Home Office survey over three months
* It is revealed 50% of ceremonies involved people who had first entered as
students
In a major new immigration scam, half of all bogus weddings now involve foreign students.
The revelation shows the full scale of the past abuse of the student visa system.
The non-EU nationals faced removal from Britain after their bogus colleges were shut down in a crackdown by the Government.
A Home Office survey over three months revealed that 50 per cent of the ceremonies involved people who had first entered the country as students (File picture)
But, instead of returning home, they are arranging fake weddings with British nationals or EU citizens to prolong their stay, often paying thousands of pounds in fees to 'fixers'.
Under a Brussels edict, marrying an EU citizen can grant the same rights to stay as marrying a Briton.
Officials say the trend shows that the migrants' true reason for travelling to the UK in the first place was to settle, not to study. Last year, they identified a suspected 2,000 sham marriages.
A snapshot Home Office survey over three months revealed that 50 per cent of the ceremonies involved people who had first entered as students.
The revelations came as the latest figures showed that while there has been a huge reduction in the number of student visas handed out, the number of non-EU nationals going to UK universities is up by more than 5 per cent.
This dispels claims by Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, that universities are missing out because of the Government's immigration policies.
Mr Cable has repeatedly clashed with Tory ministers over student visas. Last week, he claimed that public 'panic' over immigration was harming the British economy.
The number of foreign students coming to the UK was down 22 per cent to 190,000 between September 2011 and September 2012.
But officials said this was the result of closing bogus colleges and strict new rules on non-EU nationals attending colleges. Since 2010, more than 600 institutions have been barred from recruiting non-EU students.
But rather than declining, UCAS applications from non-EU students are up 5.5 per cent compared with this time last year, and now stand at 59,324.
The number of non-EU students at elite Russell Group universities was up 6 per cent in 2011/12 to 109,165.
A Government source said: 'This shows that the message is getting through that our stricter rules will not enable bogus students to come to the UK, but that the brightest and the best are welcome.'
Last month, the Office for National Statistics revealed that net migration to Britain – the difference between those arriving and leaving – fell to 153,000 in the year to September 2012.
It means that Prime Minister David Cameron is on course to hit a key election pledge to cut net migration to tens of thousands by 2015.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch, said: 'Vince Cable is not only completely out of touch with public opinion but also completely wrong on his facts.'
Chairman of Migration Watch, Sir Andrew Green
A Conservative Party source said: 'Net migration is at its lowest point for almost a decade, and is more than a third lower than when this Government came to power. The fall in immigration is in large part down to ending the widespread abuse of student visas.'
This doesn't surprise me in the least!! - Now what are the government going to do about it?? - Fx
