Vice-Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil
Sussex is one of the universities supporting a legal challenge of the government's ‘Visa Brake’ policy which stops nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan from securing student visas to study in the UK. The hearing in the High Court will conclude on 28 July.
Sussex was one of several universities that had to withdraw or withhold offers from affected students after the Visa Brake was introduced in March 2026, meaning that we could not issue documentation that offer holders need for their visa applications, offering to defer their offers instead. This has had an impact not just on our applicants but also on the colleagues who had been working with them.
About the case
The case, Sadat and Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department, is being brought on behalf of four women from Afghanistan, Sudan and Cameroon who had already secured university places and scholarships before the policy was introduced. The claimants argue the policy amounts to a blanket ban and that it particularly impacts women from countries where access to higher education is already limited, such as Afghanistan where women cannot attend university at all.
Vice-Chancellor’s witness statement
Sussex submitted a witness statement from Vice-Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil as part of the evidence in the case, alongside Kings College London, the University of Oxford, the University of Birmingham and the University of Bristol.
The statement outlined Sussex’s experience of the Visa Brake, enabling the court to see the impact of the policy, not just the legal arguments.
The Vice-Chancellor said, “where a university issues a Confirmation for Acceptance of Studies (CAS) which is then used to support a student application that is refused, that refusal counts towards the university’s compliance metrics and therefore exposes it to regulatory risk.” Universities, she said, have considered it to be irresponsible in terms of UKVI compliance to knowingly issue a CAS to a student from a Visa Brake country whilst the Visa Brake remained in force.
The case is being expedited due to the urgency of the claim, but the timing of the outcome is unknown. A further update will be published when the judgment is delivered.