Delay biometric visa checks for 80 Gaza students, dozens of MPs urge UK government

More than 70 MPs have signed a letter asking the government to delay biometric checks for 80 students from Gaza so they can study in Britain, Sky News can reveal.

Labour MPs Abtisam Mohamed and Barry Gardiner are leading the charge, asking Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to defer the requirement, so the students can take up their university places in September.

However, shadow home secretary Chris Philp says the biometric checks should not be deferred, arguing they are “an essential part of our security arrangements”.

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In order to obtain a UK visa, applicants must provide a photo of their face, as well as their fingerprints. The Home Office guidance says these data points “play a significant role in delivering security and facilitation in the border and immigration system”.

UK visa process for Gazans ‘all but impossible’

In the letter, the MPs raise the case of a Haia Mohamed, who they describe as a “young poet in Gaza”, who has won a scholarship to Goldsmiths College in London.

But neither she nor 79 other successful applicants to UK universities are able to travel to the UK because providing the required biometric data is “all but impossible”.

They write: “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.”

In an email to MPs asking them to sign the letter, Mohamed and Gardiner are far more blunt, saying: “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.”

The UK did have an authorised centre in Gaza that was able to process biometric data, but it was closed in October 2023 after the 7 October Hamas attack, and as Israel’s war in response to the atrocity got under way, according to The Guardian.

As result, they are asking the home secretary 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”, pointing out that other countries in Europe “have taken proactive steps to ensure safe evacuation routes for students bound for their countries”.

Students are ‘the future of Palestine’

Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday, one of the writers of the letter, Barry Gardiner MP, pointed out that the government has been able to find a way for injured children from Gaza to receive care in the UK, and exemptions have been made in the past, and so the same should be done in this case, and “quickly” because the academic year starts next month.

The Brent West MP also said that this is about “giving the state of Palestine the possibility of a future”.

“These young people are the future of Palestine. They are the young talent, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re constructing a road network, or a sewage system, or they’re town planners or, as in the case of Haia Mohamed, astonishingly profound poets – the state of Palestine will need everything from classical musicians right the way through to town planners,” he said.

“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.”

He added that the fact they have been able to win scholarships to, in many cases, the UK’s top universities “shows extraordinary resilience, extraordinary courage, extraordinary ability, and we should facilitate that”.

Checks ‘essential part of security arrangements’

But Conservative MP and shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Sky News in a statement: “We should not be deferring biometric checks. These are an essential part of our security arrangements, and they should not be waived or delayed until arrival in the UK – by which time it is too late.”

Earlier this month, a student from Gaza reportedly left France after being ordered to leave following the discovery of alleged antisemitic social media posts. Her lawyer said she “firmly denies the accusations made against her”, according to France24.

Mr Gardiner told Sky News: “Anyone who breaks the law in that way must be dealt with as the law requires. But what you don’t do is you don’t say, ‘somebody might break the law, so we’re not going to allow anybody to come’.”

The UK requires that biometric data be submitted in advance of the visa being approved in order to:

• Establish a person’s identity by joining the applicant’s biographical data with their biometric data;
• Verify an individual “accurately against an established identity”;
• Check they are not on a watchlist, for example, to ensure they are eligible to come to the UK.

Exemptions from the requirement to provide biometric data have been given in rare circumstances. It was waived for Ukrainians fleeing to the UK following Russia’s invasion in January 2022.

However, it was not waived for Afghans fleeing the Taliban in August 2021. But a judge later ruled that a family in hiding in the country did not have to provide the data in order to join British family members in the UK, which was thought to also apply to around 100 other families.

The Home Office and Foreign Office have been contacted for comment.