Unable to get job as visa now expired

Covid hero fought for Living Wage boost

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Then, in January this year, Edel's student visa expired while she was finishing corrections to her PhD.

She applied for further leave to remain but was refused, so she tried to get a Certificate of Sponsorship licence through her employer - but they did not have the right accreditation, meaning she found herself unemployed.

Edel applied to a new care work employer, but again the COS was not granted.

When she tried to appeal to the Home Office, she says she was told they could find no record of her applications.

Edel cannot afford legal fees because she is no longer able to work. So now she is in limbo, trapped at home and reliant on food parcels - fearing the immigration van. She has shown me a letter from the Home Office that says she is “liable to be detained”.

Edel is not an asylum seeker though she fully respects those who are but a migrant worker and overseas student caught up in what she sees as an increasingly aggressive and intimidating landscape for people like her.

"This is what happens under hostile immigration policies," she says. "People with good careers become nobodies.