‘50,000 visa dodgers’ work in UK

Up to 50,000 migrants may have used flaws in the student visa system to come to the UK for work, the public spending watchdog has warned.

MPs called for the troubled UK Border Agency (UKBA) to “get a grip and fix the way it deals with student visas” yesterday after saying the report exposed one of the most shocking examples of poor management leading to abuse.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said that the under-fire UKBA also does little to ensure that foreign students leave the UK when requests to extend their stay are refused. Addresses for almost a fifth of more than 800 migrants wanted by the agency were found in just one week at a cost of £3,000 by an independent contractor.