To refuse to check immigration status of my students

[Nevermay]

Have been informed that as of September, tutors in the comprehensive school where I work will be expected to check the immigration status of students in our tutor groups, particularly new ones, and highlight any suspicious individuals.

I've thought about this for a few weeks, and have decided to simply say no, not my job, I don't have time, I wouldn't recognise a false passport if it bit my ear, and I really don't want to mess up my relationships with my students in their first week in the school. I emailed my union yesterday to inform them of the instruction, and my decision, no response yet, I have spoken to a couple of other colleagues I am friends with, and they are not happy either - I don't know if they will actually refuse, but I suspect so

Would you do it?

Are you teaching them? Why can’t this be done an enrolment into the school?

At

Definitely not your job. Surely that’s the role of admissions team

My thoughts exactly - even if we do enrolment into 6th form at the end of August, I am only enrolling on academic considerations, and the paperwork is done in admin - they can try and check passports there is they want to, but I seriously doubt our admin staff would recognise false passports either - Its a border control job, not an educational one

That's an admin task for the school not a job for teachers during form tutor time. It should be part of the admissions process, nothing to do with teaching, whether that's pastoral teaching or subject teaching.

Also, it's not something that should be brought up with the children in a classroom environment on privacy grounds. It's their parents or guardians who should be in communication with the school if anything needs checking.

Nope, not what you signed up for OP.

The admissions team do all this where I work. They sort it all out, we have a number of refugees and other migrants.
Teachers don't do this kind of thing..

Not a teacher, but I have a job where we might have to work with people who have dodgy legal status from time to time. We have it in our contracts that we can’t reveal anything about those legal status issues in any way.

I have to check passports as part of my job, I have no idea what a fake one looks like!

Are you being asked as part of enrolling them ? In which case a cursory glance is all that's required anyway, if you are suspicious in any way you simply flag it for someone else to deal with.

It should be the admin team. Also, if they're going to check, they need to check absolutely everyone, regardless of name, accent, skin colour or demeanour.

I have a similar issue. I let out rooms in my house and I now have to check the immigration status of prospective tenants. It worries me greatly as how am I meant to tell if a passport if is fake?

This is the problem with them allowing any Tom dick and Harry in. I suppose it's because there's been cases of adult men parading as teenagers but Yanbu it's not your job to assess their immigration status. They should be doing this before they give them right to remain.

Get your union involved - checking immigration status is outright illegal for children.

You cannot take photocopies of passports (it's specifically forbidden), make notes on what is said on visas and, more to the point, all children, irrespective of immigration status - including those with no recourse to public funds - are entitled to education (and free school meals for the NRPF - it's a different system, but it just requires a self declaration of income from the parent).

I wouldn't. I have no way of judging that.

Would it be considered a safeguarding risk?

Yanbu

If you are educating under 18s then their immigration status is irrelevant.

Education is a fundamental humam right for children. You are in the business of ensuring that the children in your sphere of influence have access to that fundamental human right.

If other people want to make it their business to be a source of obstruction to them accessing that right by rounding them and their families up and tying them up in bureaucracy and making their living situation more unstable- you don't have to cooperate

But I don't want to flag anyone! How could we then move on to have a normal student teacher relationship, for the duration of that individuals A level course? How could I teach someone knowing they were going to be removed and imprisoned at 18, maybe in the first term of year 13, because of what I did?

I don't think it would be passports that would need to be checked but more likely their 'leave to remain' in the voluntary, for which they should be able to provide either a Home Office number to check by, or produce their letter from the Home Office. They wouldn't necessarily have a British passport. However, this is an administrator's job and not a teacher's.

*country, not voluntary!

Absolutely not. No union worth its salt would stand for this.

Well done for not entertaining this nonsense

You have expressed it much better than I could. I am going to use your words! Thank you

Bravo to you for making a stand. This is not good at all.

This is the guidance

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/schools-admissions-applications-from-overseas-children

It is the responsibility of the parents of foreign national children to check that their children have a right under their UK entry conditions to study at a school before applying for a place. It is not the role of state-funded schools or local authorities to ask for proof of eligibility before offering a place.

The admission authorities for state-funded schools (maintained schools and academy schools) must not check the immigration or nationality status of foreign national children as a pre-condition for admission.

Admission authorities for state-funded schools:

• must not refuse to admit a child on the basis of their nationality or immigration status nor remove them from the roll on this basis
• must not ask to see passports or other immigration information as a condition of admission (this would be a breach of paragraphs 1.9(a) and 2.8 of the school admissions code)
• with the exception of children who are Irish nationals, must not actively recruit foreign national children who are still resident overseas as pupils

Don't do it. If Nigel in the MAT wants to act as an Immigration Officer, he can fucking well join the Civil Service. No member of staff, not teaching, not support, should be carrying out immigration checks.

For those worrying that you don’t know how to identify a fake passport, the only expectation is that you’ve done reasonable due diligence - ie you’ve checked any visas are up to date, it’s in the correct name, the photo matches, and there’s no obvious signs of tampering/forgery (ie the paper feels right, the photo page isn’t damaged etc.

You’ll only have problems if you’ve signed off on something that’s obviously not right - our training was look out for wrong names, date of birth is for a 50 year old but the photo is an 18 year old etc. So long as no reasonable person would think “this looks dodgy” you’ve done what required.