Commentary in The Daily Mail 30 December, 2009
We got lucky – this time. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian graduate of University College London who tried to blow up a passenger aircraft over Detroit was turned down for a student visa when he applied for one in May.
He had been stupid enough to try to enrol in one of the 2,000 colleges the Government has at last realised are bogus.
But make no mistake, there are others who will succeed where he failed. Why?
Because the Government's new visa system is a disaster whose full results have yet to be seen. Yes, Abdulmutallab was stopped, but 370,000 student visas were issued last year.
How many of those were bogus students coming here to work on the black market? And how many were potential terrorists?
The simple answer is, we don't know and we may never know.
The new visa system requires a student to acquire 40 points before they are issued with a visa.
Thirty points are awarded automatically if he or she has a letter of acceptance from one of 3,000 educational institutions in Britain now licensed to issue such letters.
The other ten points are awarded if the student can show sufficient funds for the first year's fees and to live on during the year.
If they have the points, they get the visa. That's the theory. The reality, though, is that the system is rotten to the core. Here are ten reasons why. . .(See the full Daily Mail article)…
That day is not far off.