Lecturers who went on strike in April over their pensions stood to lose earnings. But some faced losing far more. Since 2016, employers have been obliged to report to the Home Office anyone in the UK on a tier 2 “skilled worker” visa who exceeds 20 days’ unpaid absence in a year. Had the action continued, migrant lecturers who took part would have risked deportation.

It is just one way in which the “hostile environment policy”, pursued by the government since 2010 to make living in the UK as uncomfortable as possible for illegal migrants, affects university students and staff who are in the UK legitimately, according to Sanaz Raji, an independent researcher and founder of the campaign group Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC).

“It’s not like Prevent [the government’s counter-terrorism strategy], where the way it’s implemented you know it’s a policy. It’s a far more pernicious level of surveillance,” she says.

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On Tuesday, the group launches a survey targeted at administrators, lecturers and students to find out how institutions are responding to immigration policies. The aim is to prepare a united effort to oppose practices that disadvantage migrant staff and students.

The points-based immigration system, brought in by Labour, meant universities must act as sponsors for their non-EU students and staff. The Home Office can withdraw universities’ right to recruit international students if they accept too many who are later declined visas or whose attendance is poor.

Tougher policies affecting universities followed under David Cameron in 2010. Overseas graduates can no longer remain in the UK for up to two years to look for, and take up, work and international students face time limits on how long they can study in the UK. They must now pay a health levy, and the amount they must prove they have set aside for maintenance while they study has increased. The government has also increased the minimum amount skilled migrants must earn to be allowed to work in the UK, with knock-on effects for lecturers and graduates.

Duncan Lane, director of advice and training at the UK Council for International Student Affairs, says pressure to comply with stringent Home Office practices to retain a licence to recruit foreign students, and “complex and changeable” immigration rules, often lead institutions to take “an understandably risk-averse approach”.

“Unfortunately, the balance of accountability is uneven. When the Home Office makes errors or when caseworkers rigidly follow instructions that often lead to punitively absurd decisions, the student suffers with devastating results – both as regards their studies and their immigration status. This causes undue distress to the student while not even serving the integrity of immigration control.”

URBC supporters at a rally in January. Photograph: Sanaz Raji

Raji says institutions have responded to government demands differently, with some more zealous than others.

In 2013, Sunderland and Ulster universities were found to be employing biometric fingerprinting to track international students at their London campuses, although both have changed this to digital registers or swipe cards. Coventry University, which caused controversy by asking international students to check in three times a week, now asks students to swipe in for teaching sessions.

More common is for universities to ask lecturers to take registers. But Caoimhe Mader McGuinness, a lecturer in drama at Kingston University, and a member of URBC, says she finds this problematic because it is often presented as a way of safeguarding students, particularly in the light of increased concerns about student mental health.

“It is sold to lecturers as a way of making sure that the student is taken into account and sees someone, but this is also the sort of data that is used by the Home Office to, if they so wish, declare that that student hasn’t been to enough contact points and then potentially deport them,” she says.

Universities also differ in their monitoring of staff. Earlier this year, Times Higher Education reported that the University of York had sent an email to all staff asking them to check whether foreign visitors to their department had visas and what they were doing in the UK. The university said this was aimed at “helping us reduce the university’s right to work and sponsorship risks”.

Earlier this year, Sussex University warned international staff that the institution was due to be audited by UK Borders and Immigration and they needed to report times when they were absent from their offices between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday – not easy for academics who move around the campus and rarely keep office hours.

A university spokesman said: “The university is legally required to comply with the UK government’s policies. Our role is to make sure our staff understand what information the university has been asked to provide.”

URBC members have been delivering “resistance workshops” across the UK, informing people about how government immigration policies have affected universities. It has also been involved with a number of specific cases, including Luqman Onikosi, an MA student at Sussex whose appeal to stay in the UK to have life-saving treatment for a liver condition was rejected by the Home Office, causing the university to revoke his student status. The Home Office says his application was fully considered and “an immigration judge found that he has no right to remain in the UK”.

URBC has also supported Ahmed Sedeeq, an Iraqi PhD student at the University of Sheffield, whose student visa was curtailed after his asylum application was rejected. A spokesperson from the university said: “Ahmed has returned to his studies and we continue to support him and all international students with information and guidance on UK immigration and visas.”

Raji claims that many UK universities have been more complicit in the “hostile environment policy” than necessary, and calls on student and staff unions, as well as institutions, to offer more support to those affected, including access to lawyers. “There is no push back within institutions in the UK university system, and that’s really alarming,” she said.

A spokesman for Universities UK says its members have worked with the Home Office to ensure any changes to immigration compliance are “proportionate and reasonable”.

A Home Office spokesman said the number of university-sponsored visa applications is higher than in 2010. She said: “We welcome international students. There is no limit to the number of genuine international students who can come here to study.”