Unis Resist Border Controls

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”

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””

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’””

Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) a national campaign comprising migrant students, lecturers, and activists fighting to end the two pronged beasts within UK higher education, that being of course border control via the hostile environment policy and exploitation brought on my neoliberal, marketised education. Unlike the student movement ten years ago which ignored the plight of international students, URBC has been a steadfastly free education campaign, believing that the fight for free education should be extended to migrants, whatever their immigration status.

Continue reading “Thoughts from URBC on recent student occupations and fee strikes.”

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A member of Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) shared this response they received from Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion. This response follows taking part in our #MichelleMocksStudents action where we asked supporters to send this template letter to their MPs demanding #TuitionFeeAmnesty for international students affected by the multiple UK COVID-19 lockdowns.

Continue reading “Caroline Lucas Agrees with URBC: “It is cruel for the Government to simply abandon international students””