I thought you guys knew about this student visa scam that thousands of so-called students used to gain citizenship in the country.
In 2010, a lot of bogus colleges were set up in the UK. Foreign students , mainly from Africa and Asia knowingly/unknowingly applied to these bogus colleges and came here on student visas. These colleges were formed of couple of rooms usually on a high street and had no teaching whatsoever. After operating for a few years, the colleges would close down and the owners would vanish. The so-called students would then move on to another college and bid their time so that they could complete 10 years of residency and then be eligible for an ILR visa. In these 10 years, they did multiple courses and degrees. The handful who felt betrayed and scammed went back to their countries. The rest stayed and worked for 20 hours ( supposedly ) that their student visa allowed.
Thousands of these dodgy students became British citizens and then imported their spouses from back home and now have kids here as well.
It took the incompetent Labour govt. and the Home office back then years to get round to finding out about this and then doing something about it. The dodgy students who got caught out when the govt. changed the law decided to join the army or marry an East european ( sham marriage by paying thousands of Pounds ) to stay here.
www.ft.com
I recently also checked Linkedin profiles of overseas students who studied with me in univeristy. Guess what? None of them went back and they are all working here. This was 20 years ago. God knows how many more have stayed on and taken people's jobs.