‘I had no idea how life would be’: Inside the lives of those who overstay their visas and go underground
“I just wanted to save my life,” says Dhanabal, who came to Britain from India to study. But it was only the visa that came with the university place that interested him, and his plan was always to stay on after it expired.
The 26-year-old relies on cash-in-hand jobs to survive, waiting in Sheffield for a call from a mystery man he calls “the boss” to give him construction or cleaning work for “pocket money” and food.
“I had no idea when I came to the UK how my life would be – I just wanted to leave India,” says softly spoken Dhanabal, who is wearing a grey tracksuit, with a neat haircut and beard. “I didn’t think about what it would be like here.”
Dhanabal – we’re not using his family name – says his politics got him into trouble with the Indian police and he paid an agency £7,000 to arrange a university place in Britain.
Dhanabal’s story is a rare insight into the life of a visa overstayer
Sky News has seen a copy of his passport, which shows he arrived in 2021 on a student visa that was due to expire a few months ago.
He did a month of a master’s course in business management at a university in the north of England, he says, but found it “too hard”. The college where Dhanabal was given a place told us they couldn’t comment on individual cases because of student confidentiality.
His story is a rare insight into the world of those who overstay their visas and go underground.
But with net migration to the UK at record levels – 606,000 people came to Britain from abroad during the 12 months to December 2022 – Sky News can reveal the government has no public data on the scale of those who overstay their visa and fail to return to their country of origin.
The system has “collapsed”, says Vasuki Murahathas, who has worked as an immigration solicitor for 24 years. She estimates the number of calls from overstayers asking for advice has gone up 50% in the last year. There’s no way of independently verifying this.
Her desperate clients want to know how to switch to working visas – which she says the government has just made more difficult – or find other ways to legally stay in the UK.
People “disappear and hide”, she says, because they can’t find sponsors for jobs, often falling into poverty and low paid cash-in-hand work when they can’t find a way to sort out their immigration situation.
“Some are really suffering,” she says. “The government is allowing people to come as students – they want more people to come as skilled workers but people are misusing the system to enter the UK.
“Some people are coming knowing they can overstay and no one can do anything.”
Immigration solicitor Vasuki Murahathas
Dhanabal is not the only person who is struggling to survive after coming to the UK on a student visa which has now either been curtailed or expired.
Suresh, 35, shows us into a back garden in London where he is mowing the lawn and tidying the pathway. He tugs on the green jumper he is wearing, as he explains how he has been given clothes, not money, in exchange for his day’s work.
“Sometimes people offer me food, sometimes I get £10 or £20,” he says matter-of-factly. “Sometimes I do gardening or cleaning jobs. I don’t get work every day. It’s a hard life. One day I will be okay.”
Suresh has lived like this for seven years after arriving from India on a student visa. He didn’t start the course at the university in Wales where he was awarded a place.
“I don’t want to go to college,” he admits.
Suresh is paid in clothes for clearing a garden
Some 1.1 million prospective students and their family members who came on study visas from January 2021 to March 2023.
But the Home Office told Sky News it can’t provide data on exactly how many people have overstayed visas over the last three years.
The most recent statistics available are for the year ending March 2020 – which showed there were 1.9 million visas that expired during that time. There was no record of departure for 83,600 people whose work, study or family visa expired in that period.
Of that number, there were 54,689 people who arrived on tourist visas and 7,236 people who came on student visas unaccounted for.
Universities in the UK rely on the millions of pounds foreign students bring with them in tuition fees. According to data from the HESA – the statutory data collection agency for UK higher education institutions – there were 679,970 international students studying in the UK in 2021/22.
‘Overstaying is against the law’
But potential abuse of student visas as a way to get to the UK means universities are under pressure to weed out applicants who aren’t genuine.
The body which represents universities in the UK says targets set by the government for course completion and enrolment by international students are currently being met.
Some 85% of international students must complete their course, and 90% must at least enrol otherwise a university is at risk of being banned from recruiting from abroad.
Jamie Arrowsmith, director of Universities UK International, says the sector is “very well” equipped to address the issue and is “trying to ensure that those people that are applying to come to the UK” are “genuine students and that they’re here to study”.
A Home Office spokesperson says: “Those who have no right to remain in the UK and do not return home voluntarily should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them. Overstaying is against the law, unnecessarily costs the taxpayer money, and is unfair on law-abiding migrants who come to the UK through the legal channels.”
Three brothers have been jailed after underage girls in Leeds and Barrow-in-Furness were sexually abused and raped over a number of years.
The trio were convicted in October last year, with the abuse taking place between 1996 and 2010.
Shaha Amran Miah, 49, known as Jai; Shaha Alman Miah, 47, known as Ali; and Shah Joman Miah, 38, known as Sarj all pleaded not guilty.
Sarj has since admitted his crimes. However, the judge said it could be a cynical attempt for leniency and did not give him any credit.
Shaha Amran Miah, Shaha Joman Miah and Shaha Alman Miah. Pic: Cumbria Police
They were sentenced on Friday to the following:
Shaha Amran Miah – life with a minimum term of 20 years and 338 days.
Shaha Alman Miah – 10 years in prison and four years on licence.
Shah Joman Miah – life with a minimum term of 21 years and 232 days.
Preston Crown Court heard Sarj and Jai regularly sexually abused two children at a Leeds mosque over many years, beginning when the victims were seven.
The three also preyed on vulnerable and underage girls at a flat above their family’s takeaway in Barrow, Cumbria, between 2008 and 2010.
They gave them cigarettes, alcohol, food and even hair extensions in what barrister Tim Evans KC called a “classic grooming technique”.
He said the brothers worked as a team and “created an environment in Barrow in which each of them could abuse young girls”.
Judge Unsworth KC said they had shattered the lives of their victims and hid in plain sight in the Cumbria town.
Multiple schoolgirls in their uniforms were regularly seen at the takeaway, the judge said, with Jai acting ruthlessly to stop them going to the police.
The court heard Sarj would take one of the girls to a hotel for sex about twice a month and became increasingly controlling – to the point she remains on medication and is terrified of seeing him in the street.
Read more from Sky News:
Woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann charged with stalking
Boyfriend of murder victim Ashley Dale jailed in Liverpool
A witness told Sky News the men abused their victims in a dingy room above the takeaway that “looked like a crackhouse” and had mattresses on the floor and sheets covering the windows.
“They knew exactly how young they were,” she said. “They didn’t only have one girlfriend each… they had multiple.”
Shaha Amran Miah was found guilty of 16 sexual offences against three girls, including rape, as well as two charges of intimidation and one of kidnap.
Shaha Alman Miah was found guilty of three counts of sexual activity with a child.
Shah Joman Miah was convicted of sexually abusing three children. There were nine counts of rape of a child among his 40 offences.
Apple will no longer offer customers in the UK its most advanced, end-to-end security encryption feature for cloud data – following a security row with the government.
The Advanced Data Protection (ADP) tool is an optional feature which means only account holders can see things like photos or documents that they have stored online. Apple itself does not have access to the data.
However, the UK government reportedly requested the right to see the data earlier this month.
In response, Apple has removed the tool from use in the UK.
The company is switching it off as an option for those not already using it, and will introduce a process to move existing users away from it.
Security officials argue that encryption hinders criminal investigations, while tech firms defend it as essential to user privacy.
The loss of end-to-end encryption for iCloud backup means Apple would be able in some instances to read user data such as iMessages that would otherwise be protected and pass it on to authorities if legally compelled.
However, if a user has end-to-end encryption, Apple cannot read the data under any circumstances.
An Apple store in New York. Pic: iStock
What has Apple said?
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy,” Apple said in a statement.
“Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before.
“Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom.”
Read more from science and technology:
How AI is being used to manipulate German voters
New prostate cancer screening trial announced
Donated placenta saved acid attack victim’s eye
Apple customers who already had the data protection tool turned on “will eventually need to disable this security feature”, said the company.
It is already unavailable for customers who weren’t using the feature, who now see a message reading: “Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users.”
What has the UK government said?
The government said it will not confirm or deny whether it requested a Technical Capability Notice (TCN), which is what would give it the right to see the encrypted data.
“We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices,” a Home Office spokesperson told Sky News.
According to a Home Office source, however, even if a TCN was issued, it wouldn’t give the government blanket access to people’s data.
Separate authorisations or warrants would still be required.
What’s the reaction from the tech industry?
Many in the tech industry are shocked by Apple’s move, with Graeme Stewart from cybersecurity company Check Point saying it “is effectively smashing open Pandora’s box and hoping the chaos stays neatly inside”.
“At its heart, encryption isn’t just for criminals; it’s a shield for millions of law-abiding citizens, businesses, and critical infrastructure,” he said.
“Now we are prying open that door to our digital Fort Knox, there’s no telling what else might slip through.”
Apple was also described as “calling the government’s bluff” by Robert Peake who is the technology partner at Keystone Law, for refusing to create a backdoor into its protected data.
“The Government will face increasing pressure to back down on this, as it seriously undermines its recent attempts to portray the UK as a pro-innovation place to operate,” he said.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway