URBC Statement: New Ways of Working

Since Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) was established in March 2016, we have provided voluntary casework support for migrant staff and students impacted by the Hostile Environment policy and UK’s draconian border controls both within and outside of the university. In the course of providing voluntary and free casework, we have concluded several high profile and successful campaigns, Shiromini Satkanurajah, Ahmed Sedeeq (#LetAhmedStay), and Riham Sheble (#LetRihamStay) along with helping both migrant university staff and students in a private capacity. These campaigns have helped underscore how Hostile Environment policy operates both within the university and intersect with other issues, particularly health and disability. 

Our casework surgeries and campaigns have helped to inform our knowledge of the changing manner of Hostile Environment policy in higher education & in other environments. However, casework has taken the bulk of our time, meaning we have had less capacity to craft new strategies to help migrant students, migrant university workers and their allies in launching a united force in ending Hostile Environment policy as practised within our universities. This is why URBC members believe we must cultivate a new direction as immigration policies are increasingly becoming more stringent and attacks on migrants, asylum seekers and undocumented people are so thoroughly mainstreamed that they prompted the race riots we witnessed in August 2024.  

New Direction

We have recently received an award from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) Grassroots Movement fund, which will enable URBC to take a new direction as an organisation. With the funding provided to us, we are looking to take on group cases that touch on the following themes affecting migrant students and/or migrant staff: 

  1. Disability issues
  2. IHS fee hikes
  3. Free speech issues, e.g., where visa status is weaponised by an institution
  4. Pushing back on more intrusive surveillance devices used for attendance monitoring. 

Per our Manifesto and Code of Conduct & COVID Policies, URBC reserves the right to turn down any casework.

New Way of Working

URBC is a volunteer-led grassroots organisation. This means that we must protect our members’ physical and mental health in order to ensure that we can continue our work. We therefore have limited capacity for individual casework and other activities we undertake. Overworking and burning out our members does not advance our cause.

In this spirit, we have a new way of working.

Casework

  1. We will no longer take on individual casework at this time. Instead, casework will involve group cases of 4 or migrant students in UK higher education that could be used to launch a legal case as listed in the New Direction section. 
  2. To address community needs, we are offering a Casework Surgery once every two months, starting in November – book here
  3. We will use this time to launch a toolkit geared for university staff and students, teaching them the methods we have honed in launching successful individual campaigns. Additionally, we will resume online and in-person workshops during the year to answer questions and get students, staff and other abolitionist skilled up concerning the Hostile Environment policy in UK higher education. 
  4. Since late 2023, we have implemented a Casework Agreement Form to set appropriate expectations for both URBC and those who solicit support from us. The purpose of the Casework Agreement Form is to ensure that the casework we take meets the merits of our mission and that our members avoid unmanageable workloads.

Communications

  1. We maintain a 3–7 working day turnaround for emails (except for active cases). 
  2. All communications must comply with our Code of Conduct & COVID Policies.

Workshops, Consultancy, & Other Collaborations

  1. We now require advance booking of workshops and other events facilitation. This can be requested through our Workshop Inquiry Form.
  2. All events must comply with our Code of Conduct & COVID Policies.

We are excited by this new direction that URBC is embarking upon. URBC looks forward to continuing our mission to end Hostile Environment in the university and beyond. 

Labour, Tory, both the same, a vote for genocide and shame!

An A4 poster reading "Labour Tory all the same: a vote for genocide and shame! No vote for political parties that collude with Israel in furthering the on-going genocide in Gaza! No vote for political parties that seek to extend more harmful borders on migrants! demand better!." The Labour rose and Tory tree are in back with red blooddrops dripping from them down onto the ground.

Borrowing from the Asian Youth Movement (AYM) who coined the motto, “Labour Tory both the same, both play the racist game,” Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) are sharing this A4 poster that you can distribute in your community to let Labour and Tory candidates know that their respective party’s support of Israel setter-colonialism, their allowing the genocide in Gaza to continue eight months on, in addition to their continued scapegoating of migrants and pushing for a more carceral border regime is wrong and wholly unacceptable. 

This is why we say – Labour, Tory, both the same, a vote for genocide and shame! 

Tip us: please donate to URBC and support migrant-led organising

UCU Election & Migrant-Washing: A View from URBC

On Friday 16 February, the UCU Black Members Standing Committee (UCU BMSC) began their boycott of University College Union (UCU). This boycott comes, as UCU BMSC explains in a statement, after years of,  

[…] bureaucratic hurdles and tokenistic gestures that diminish our agency and representation. Our official complaints have been met with unsatisfactory ‘resolution’, and the union leadership has failed to honour our democratic process, decision-making and political agency. Furthermore, the anti-racist work we do for our constituencies and the wider membership has been further hampered as UCU has not provided us with a dedicated support official for our committee for the last 5 months at this critical time for global anti-racism.

Continue reading “UCU Election & Migrant-Washing: A View from URBC”

Statement Regarding The Sunday Times “Cash for Courses: Top Universities Recruit Foreign Students on Low Grades”

Screenshot of The Sunday Times front page with headline "exposed: foreign students get secret route to top universities"
The Sunday Times front page, 28 January 2024

On Saturday 28 January 2024, The Sunday Times published a piece entitled, “Cash for Courses: Top Universities Recruit Foreign Students on Low Grades.” The piece has since been featured on The Times YouTube channel in addition to the Daily Mail. The main crux of The Times investigation is that migrant students (dubbed foreign or international students) are using the international foundation courses at a number of elite Russell Group universities in order to gain admittance into undergraduate courses despite having lower grades below the entry requirement than their home (British) student counterparts.

Continue reading “Statement Regarding The Sunday Times “Cash for Courses: Top Universities Recruit Foreign Students on Low Grades””

Statement from URBC on The Observer’s “Human traffickers ‘using UK universities as cover'”

Screenshot of an article from The Observer titled "human traffickers 'using UK universities as cover'. Overseas students have vanished from courses and then been found working in exploitative conditions"

After years on the frontline, Unis Resist Border Control (URBC)  have extensive familiarity with the exploitative situations migrant students in the UK find themselves in. As such, we are extremely concerned about The Observer article “Human traffickers ‘using UK universities as cover’” published on 3 July 2022 by Shanti Das, and the conclusions that are drawn upon.

Continue reading “Statement from URBC on The Observer’s “Human traffickers ‘using UK universities as cover’””