Charles ☭  is a GreenMar 4

Thinking of coming to the UK to study?

Don't.

The universities are fine, but the visa system is a nightmare and getting worse. Successive governments have targeted students to score anti-immigrant political points.

This may be incredibly disruptive to your studies. If they cancel your visa in the middle or give you one with a shorter duration than your degree and then decide not to renew it, you will not be refunded for the time or money spent for your studies up to that point.

Show threadQueen FaunMar 4
@celesteh And even if you get work with a University they might just refuse to sponsor your visa after you've worked with them for 6 months, as happened to a friend of my partner who is now being deported
Show threadCharles ☭  is a GreenMar 4

@ackthrice

Fucking hell. What university? Has your friend tried to get help from the UCU?

Show threadQueen FaunMar 4
@celesteh It was Uni of West of England. I think they tried a lot of stuff, sadly I think their deadline to leave was the end of Feb so it's all too late now.
Show threadCharles ☭  is a GreenMar 4

@ackthrice

I'm so sorry for your friend.

I'm not currently in a role, so I can't raise it, but it would be best if this had some consequences for the uni*. Like, their union could object and other branches could sanction them.

* its entirely possible that this is not the uni's fault but is a home office fuck up. A six month visa validity is shockingly short, so something went wildly wrong somewhere.

Show threadQueen Faun
@celesteh Yeah I don't know the ins and outs, they were a recent graduate and hired, maybe on the tail end of another visa? Not sure but she'd only been working at the uni for about 6 months and they wouldn't sponsor her to stay so she had to go back to her country of origin. The uni wouldn't give a reason every avenue she tried they just said 'it's a business decision, we don't have to give you a reason' basically.
Mar 4 at 3:58pmWeb
Show threadCharles ☭  is a GreenMar 4

@ackthrice

It sounds like she was on a post-study visa and they refused to sponsor her work visa.

This system is structurally abusive, but the abuse is coming from the Home Office, not the university. They could certainly have done a better job explaining. In order to get sponsored, they'd have to show that nobody else in the UK could do her job, and also pay a ton of money to the Home Office and to lawyers, and also only can sponsor a small number of people so tend to favour more high profile candidates.

Nobody wants to explain this because they feel bad and don't want to get emotionally invested and she's leaving anyway, so if they just ignore the problem it goes away, right? They're incentivised to act like evil fuckers.

Again, I'm sorry for your friend. This is another reason why the UK is not a great place to study. Also, the post-study rules change every time the home secretary sneezes.

Show threadQueen FaunMar 4
@celesteh Ok yeah, so it's home office rules but the university that's being assholes about it, that makes sense I guess
Show threadQueen FaunMar 4
@celesteh On reflection, the University must have hired them with full knowledge they had no intention of sponsoring the work visa, so actually that is pretty fucked up too