Tens of thousands of foreign students are to be contacted directly by the government and warned that they will be removed from the UK if they overstay their visas.
The Home Office has launched the new campaign in response to what it has called an “alarming” spike in the number of international students arriving legally on student visas then claiming asylum when they expire.
As part of the campaign, the Home Office will for the first time proactively contact about 130,000 students and their families, warning them they will be forced to leave the UK if they have no legal right to remain.
The full message will read: “If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused. Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support. If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave. If you don’t, we will remove you.”
The University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said the campaign was an “attack on international students” that has “very little to do with visa overstays and everything to do with apeing Reform”.
She added: “They should instead be making the case for a welcoming and economically strong Britain, of which international students and a world-leading higher education sector are an integral part.”
Although the political and media focus this summer has been on people arriving on small boats, a similar number arrive legally with visas, then apply for asylum often when those visas run out.
Many claims are legitimate, but ministers fear that too many international students are seeking asylum to stay in the country because their leave to remain has run out. Earlier this year, the Home Office cut the amount of time overseas graduates can stay in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.
In the year to June 2025, 43,600 people seeking asylum arrived on a small boat – 39% of all asylum claims, according to Home Office data. Another 41,100 asylum claims came from people who entered legally with a visa, with the largest group among visa holders being students – 16,000 last year, nearly six times as many as in 2020.
Since then, Home Office data shows there has been a drop of 10%, but ministers in the department want the figures to fall further.
This week, the government has been under pressure from opposition parties including the Conservatives and Reform to declare “a national emergency” on migration and illegal immigration.
On Tuesday morning, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, declined to guarantee that migrants would definitely be sent back across the Channel this month as part of a returns agreement with France, after telling the Commons on Monday that the first returns under the deal were expected in late September.
When pressed, she replied: “We expect the first returns to take place this month. But I’ve always said from the very beginning on this, it’s a pilot scheme and it needs to build up over time.”
She contrasted her “practical and sensible” approach with that of the previous Conservative government on Rwanda, which “spent £700m and sent four volunteers after running it for two years”.
She also told Times Radio that ministers believe asylum hotels can be emptied earlier than the end of the current parliament, after Keir Starmer said on Monday that he wanted to move all asylum seekers out of hotel accommodation before his government’s deadline of the end of the parliament, which could last until 2029.
