Benjamin Ko: The immigration crisis no one talks about | Conservative Home

Benjamin Byung Hoon Ko is a political commentator.

As a legal, student-visa-holding immigrant, I came to the UK with the idea that Britain is open to talent and ambition. Some may say that this talent and ambition has been eroded in modern times. It is easy for us to point fingers at those who enter this country illegally – and understandably so. The people who enter this country illegally, mainly by crossing the British Channel on small boats, never really integrate into British culture. They form their own community, put an extra burden on the government and taxpayers, and erode certain cultural hubs of Britain. While illegal immigration rightly dominates headlines, an even more insidious problem is entering through the front door: the mass abuse of student visas.

Unlike small boats immigrants, the student visa is legal on paper, but highly damaging in practice. It undermines trust, degrades the educational standards, and erodes British cultural cohesion. It is time for the Conservatives to confront the silent failure of mass legal migration via the utter failure of the British student visa system.

There are some students who come to this country, and learn to respect this nation’s history, culture, and the people. I’d like to think that I am one of the few who do so. However, the problem with those who enter Britain via student visas, is that there are many more who do not respect the principles above.

Student visas are now the largest driver of legal migration into the UK – a fact often buried and ignored, as the political focus is on small boat migrants. However, the scale of those entering Britain legally and illegally, are significantly different. The UK government issued over 600,000 student visas in the year to June 2023 – more than double the number issued in 2019. In addition to this staggering number, in 2022 more than 140,000 ‘dependents’ arrived via the student visa route (up from just 16,000 in 2019). This is an eightfold increase in three years. Some applicants bring over entire families under a visa category meant for individual education, which further increases the number of those entering this country ‘legally’.

It is true that Universities are financially incentivised to grow these numbers. It is also true that these people enter this country legally, on paper. However, it is the British public who are paying for this burden. The British never voted for mass migration under the banner of ‘education’. Just by studying the scale of students entering Britain, one can already get a glimpse of how pressing the student visa issue is.

The first problem that this mass student migration creates, is that it fundamentally erodes British culture. Even though there are some who speak fluent English and integrate well, the unfortunate reality is that many do not. Many so-called ‘international students’ arrive with extremely poor English, despite being enrolled in some of the world’s top educational institutions.

To make matters worse, the institutions turn a blind eye, simply because foreign students pay more fees than domestic students, which creates this vicious cycle. For example, Chinese students make up the largest non‑UK cohort at UK universities: over 154,000 in 2021‑22, around 25  per cent of all international students. Despite being here by ‘educational’ means, many of these ‘students’ do not meet the standard of English of a university. Because of this self-created language barrier, they also erode British culture, by surrounding themselves with other Chinese students, practicing and imposing their own cultural and language standards. The same can be said for Indians, Nigerians, and Pakistanis where they all share similar approaches. Even though these students offer the funding to the universities, many cluster in isolated communities, encouraged by universities that treat them as revenue streams rather than participants in British civic life. The long-term cost is erosion of British academic standards, and a weakened sense of shared national culture.

The second problem is that the student visa has become a de facto work visa. Of course, the utopian aim of the student visa scheme is to promote British education, so that internationals can benefit Britain and contribute to British society in the long run. However, the jobs that many student visa holders take on, are not high-skilled. It is an open secret that thousands of ‘students’ work full-time via gig economy jobs such as food delivery services, hospitality, and as uber drivers. They work illegally full-time, beyond their 20-hour student work limit, and they do this via unranked, unregistered, or questionable universities. Institutions such as Newcastle Business College, European University of Business, and Manchester Open University, all offer fake degrees, without having any physical campus or genuine academic activity. The abuse of visa rules destroys the system of integrity and undermines government institutions such as the Home Office. In addition, the low-wage gig economy jobs that the immigrants take offer a system of dodging taxes and taking work from those who are able to work rightly. It also damages the reputation of British educational institutions that used to pride themselves on quality, not wealth. Lastly, in the case above regarding integration, these people do not respect or fully integrate with British culture due to their low language skills and civic disengagement.

With the problems explored above, one might ask: ‘Who loses from this?’ The grim truth is that everyone loses, apart from those who abuse this very system. First, the British students suffer as resources in the job market and at university are diverted into accommodating those who do not deserve a place at British universities. Because of the drive to accommodate these people, the educational standards and demands are also loosened. Second, the taxpayers are forced into absorbing the strain on housing, transport, and public services – particularly in university towns where short-term student migration has long-term impacts on the town’s economy and culture. Third, the British public suffers, as they lose faith in the integrity of the immigration system, as they see their system being used as a loophole for illegal workers, rather than as a path for elite academic exchange. Lastly, legal immigrants who have integrated well, also suffer as these ‘students’ who do not respect British history, culture, or academic institutions, damage the reputation of other legitimate students.

Britain has a proud tradition and reputation of offering world-class education to the world’s best minds, and this should never be tampered with. But the current system threatens this very tradition and reputation. This immigration system is being abused on a significant scale – not by refugees (even though that issue is pressing as well), but by legally sanctioned migrants masqueraded as education. If Conservatives want to restore public trust in immigration and protect British culture, they must look beyond the British Channel and fix the broken student visa system. A system that rewards deception over discipline hurts everyone, except those who continue to abuse the system and have no moral qualms on profiting from this decline.