South West Employers Named And Shamed For Employing Illegal Immigrants

Six South West companies are facing fines of £50,000 for employing illegal immigrants as part of the Home Office’s crackdown on people smuggling.

The UK Border Agency (which is part of the Home Office, responsible for securing UK borders and controlling migration) recently named 32 employers who had been caught employing illegal workers on its website. The six local employers, all ethnic restaurants or take aways employed 10 illegal immigrant workers and were fined under the new civil penalty system introduced on 29 February 2008.

Under the system any employer found to be using illegal workers will be served with a notification of potential liability by immigration staff carrying out enforcement and compliance visits. The Illegal Working Civil Penalty Unit will then consider evidence, provided by the visiting officer, and decide whether to impose a fine of up to £10,000 per illegal worker.

The amount of the fine depends on the types of checks the employer used, the number of warnings or civil penalties imposed and the level of co-operation by the employer.

In addition to fines, there is a new criminal offence of knowingly employing an illegal migrant worker, which is for more serious cases where employers deliberately flout the law. Such employers face two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

The responsibility lies with employers to check all prospective employees’ entitlement to work in the UK if they wish to avoid breaking the law. Meanwhile, employers are finding it is difficult to know if an identity document is genuine or a forgery.

The new rules are hitting the ethnic restaurant sector particularly hard and are being blamed for a shortage of skilled chefs, which the Government plans to plug by training. Trade union leaders are concerned that the new rules could drive the worst employers underground.

The scale of the problem is hard to estimate but many believe that over 500,000 people are working in the UK without permission. If this number is correct, we can expect to see many more employers named by the Home Office.

The Home Office says illegal working hurts good business, undercuts legal workers and creates illegal profits, as well as putting illegal workers at risk.

Further information is available on the UK Border Agency website, www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk.

Published 24/07/2008. The author of this article is Karen Plumbley-Jones