University lecturers have voted to boycott new visa rules which they say force staff to spy on foreign students.

The toughened up immigration rules make colleges responsible for their overseas students. Universities must keep a copy of students’ passports, report them if they fail to enrol or consistently miss lectures, or if they drop out. They must raise concerns if students are suspected of being involved in terrorism.

But members of the University and Colleges Union, UCU, voted today to ignore the legislation calling it “discriminatory” and “an attack on the civil liberties of international staff and students”.

An investigation by The Times found that a loophole in Britain’s immigration system allowed thousands of Pakistanis to register as students at a network of sham colleges.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, said: "Our members are educators not border guards.”

Under the rules brought in in March, foreign staff and students must carry biometric ID cards and all universities and further education colleges need a licence from the UK Border Agency to operate.

The union says the laws require members “to carry out policing and surveillance duties” on behalf of the Home Office.

“It is likely to lead to draconian absence and sickness policies being introduced and members being disciplined if they do not report absences of international staff and students,” a motion, carried at the union’s conference in Bournemouth, said.

A spokeswoman for the UK Border Agency said the Home Office would not tolerate fraudulent applicants trying to abuse Britain’s immigration rules, or “dodgy colleges” that facilitate them.

At present there are 240,000 non-EU students in Britain. Government figures show that more than 43,120 Pakistani citizens were granted student visas between 2004 and 2007.

"Educational institutions have a duty of care to all their students and checking that they are attending and making progress in their studies is part of that responsibility,” the Home Office spokeswoman said.

“The records we expect education providers to keep are those which most will keep for their own purposes anyway.”

Over 400 members, representing lecturers across the UK carried a motion instructing their union to “provide all possible support” for anyone who refuses to carry out the checks.

The union will lobby for the abolition of the visa rules and will “launch a campaign of non-compliance with all such policing and surveillance duties,” its members said.

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