The first thing to understand is that when we talk to people face to face at our airport immigration booths, everything is logged.
There’s a specific number, linked to our name, details and shift, that can be traced back to us through the stamp that we put in your passport. This means we take the responsibility very seriously as it is our name on the entry record.
For everyone who can’t use the e-gates for entry, my job is to establish that the people we meet are who they say they are, and that they are entering the UK for the reasons stated on their visa.
We are also looking for victims of serious crime like fraud, sex trafficking, modern slavery and female genital mutilation – as well as the criminals themselves – who may appear on watch lists.
Our job is to spot potential red flags and pass them to a case team for further investigation.
If we do flag someone, then other specialists support us to collect further information. It is never my decision alone to turn someone back at the border.
We ask people questions like: what’s the purpose of your visit? Why are you here? How long are you here for? Do you have a return ticket or are you planning any ongoing travel?
We also ask for proof that will indicate the things they are telling us are true. Most people will come prepared with documentation and contact numbers ready, if required.
In my experience, legitimate students can articulate themselves and show you paperwork from the university and accommodation – and you get a sense that everything is kosher [compliant].
However, there are a few students who turn up at your desk and things don’t add up.
In one case I had, the student had an offer from what sounded like a made-up university based in London. It raised my suspicion because this wasn’t a usual study destination.
I started to ask him questions about his chosen course of study and he could barely speak English when responding.
It transpired that he had paid thousands of pounds to someone in India to get him a student visa and was told that no one would ask any questions at the border.
He told us someone had taken his place to do the English exams and he’d come to this country to work and send money home to his parents.
He genuinely thought that he was just going to walk straight through [the border] and in the end I felt sorry for him because he was just a young guy doing what his family wanted, without understanding the risks they were putting on him.
If I hadn’t stopped and questioned him, where would he be now?
If someone is coming to study in the UK, I don’t think it is unreasonable to test their knowledge of what and where they are studying.
I know they are often tired and unnerved, but we give them every chance to explain themselves, and this case shows why.
It is not my job to decide which organisations can sponsor study or work visas, but there are undoubtedly people who want to make money from abusing the system.
The system isn’t perfect and during peak times, rightly or wrongly, we are sometimes instructed to keep the queues moving.
I read a recent BBC article about universities enrolling students with poor English, and having to dilute the way they teach to accommodate them.
The majority of students I meet at the border, their English is spot on.
However, I have to admit that some of the students do seem to struggle with English and I would have concerns about them coping with university education [based on my own experience].
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
If a university then tells us an international student hasn’t turned up or has failed, and they appeared on our radar again, we would then have to send them back home.
There are a few students who turn up at your desk and things don’t add up.
Validating information that people give us is an important part of the process.
This is especially true for people under the age of 18 where we have a duty of care. During the summer months, a lot of minors come to the UK for short courses and study camps.
Again, the vast majority are organised and properly supervised, but every now and then you’ll get a 16 year old who tells us something like they are meeting “John” in arrivals, who will be wearing a “pink shirt”.
Then we have to close our booth and start ringing numbers to trace who the student is being picked up by and in my experience this is a convoluted process with universities.
You end up going around the houses calling people until you can verify who “John in the pink shirt” actually is.
Last summer, I stopped a 17-year-old Brazilian girl who claimed to be coming to study English. She then said her boyfriend was picking her up and alarm bells started ringing in my head.
In the end, after a lot of tears from her, she gave me a home phone number and I rang her parents to check.
It turned out that they thought she’d gone to a friend’s house for the weekend, when in fact she was meeting a man five thousand miles away, whom she’d only ever met before online.
Needless to say, she was returned home and for me it was another ‘what if’ moment had I let her through.
These are the types of situations we face. How do you spot the risks and the vulnerable, hidden among all of the millions of border entries every year?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The PIE News.
