UK MPs demand visa waiver for Gaza students

London: At least 70 British MPs have signed a letter demanding that the government delay biometric requirements for 80 Palestinian students in Gaza, Sky News reported.

The war in the enclave has prevented the students from fulfilling the mandatory biometric checks, and a government waiver would let them take their university spots in Britain.

The students have all been granted university positions for the beginning of their studies in September. Labour’s Abtisam Mohamed and Barry Gardiner are leading the appeal by MPs.

Applicants for UK visas, which the students need, require a portrait photo and fingerprint scans.

Home Office guidance says this “plays a significant role in delivering security and facilitation in the border and immigration system.”

Biometric data allows border officials to perform identity checks and verify that visa applicants are not on a watchlist, ensuring their eligibility to come to the UK.

However, Gaza’s only biometrics center handling UK applications closed in October 2023 after the start of the war.

The MPs’ letter said: “Even before the war, leaving Gaza to pursue higher education was a complex process. The ongoing siege and restrictions made travel extremely difficult, but in the current state of constant bombardment, shootings at aid sites, and an IPC-declared famine, this process has become all but impossible.”

It added: “Unless the government makes rapid progress with offering visas and coordinating evacuations over the next week, students who should be starting university next month in the UK will be among those who are being shot dead at aid sites, bombed in displacement camps or starving as famine spreads deeper in Gaza.”

Signatories are asking Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to “defer biometric data screening for student visa applicants based in Gaza and open a safe passage to enable these young people to fulfil their academic dreams.”

Other countries in Europe have already “taken proactive steps to ensure safe evacuation routes for students bound for their countries,” the letter said.

Gardiner, speaking to Sky News, highlighted the government’s ability to evacuate injured children from Gaza to receive treatment in the UK.

He questioned why the same mercy is not being shown to the 80 students, who have already been admitted to British institutions.

He also cited previous government exemptions to the biometric rules, such as for Ukrainian refugees and a small number of Afghan families with relatives already in Britain.

A government waiving of the requirement would also “give the state of Palestine the possibility of a future,” Gardiner said.

“These young people are the future of Palestine. They are the young talent … The state of Palestine will need everything from classical musicians right the way through to town planners,” he added.

“And these youngsters are coming over here with that full range of study potential, with the express intention of going back and building their nation.”

They have shown “extraordinary resilience, extraordinary courage, extraordinary ability, and we should facilitate that,” he said.