Employers face new fines for illegal working

Businesses must source migrant labour through legal means or face severe penalties, the Home Office announced today as part of its comprehensive programme to reform Britain’s immigration controls.

The Government is setting out new measures to prevent illegal working following a consultation with UK businesses. Under a new system of civil penalties, employers who negligently hire illegal workers could face a maximum fine of £10,000 for each illegal worker found at a business. If employers are found to have knowingly hired illegal workers they could incur an unlimited fine and be sent to prison.

These measures, which take effect in February, will make it easier than ever before for employers to carry out checks and for the Border and Immigration Agency to deal with non-compliance.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said of the new civil penalties:

“By stamping out illegal working we are making the UK a less attractive destination for illegal migration.

“The new civil penalties are a more effective way of dealing with employers who use slipshod or exploitative recruitment methods. Together with the introduction of compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals next year, there can be no excuse for not checking the identity of those applying for jobs.

“By working together with employers and others we have developed a system that delivers the migrants the UK needs, but which also keeps out those that it does not.”

Chris Gillespie, HR Director of NCP Services, said:

“We employ staff from more than 100 nations so we often see people who do not have the right to work in this country trying to gain employment with very convincing forged documents. We work closely with the Home Office to ensure our processes and procedures are kept up to date.

“Illegal working cannot be tackled by the Government alone and it’s every employer’s duty to ensure that they conduct the proper checks on prospective employees.

“Illegal working exploits vulnerable people, undermines fair business competition and the minimum wage and deprives the economy of tax and National Insurance contributions.  These proposals will help ensure we close down illegal working and develop routes for employers to recruit legally the foreign workers they need to grow their businesses.”

The Government today also published a Statement of Intent setting out a new approach for licensing employers or colleges who wish to sponsor migrants for visa applications.  Under the Points Based System employers and colleges will need a license in order to sponsor migrants. To earn and hold a licence they must agree to fulfill certain duties.

DARI & TUM – TURKISH EUROPEAN COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION AGREEMENTS BUSINESS APPLICATIONS

 Dari & Tum (C-16/05), judgement issued on 20 September 2007 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), found that the standstill clause contained in the Additional Protocol to the ECAA with Turkey prevented, on a reciprocal basis, countries who are signatories of the Agreement from introducing new restrictions on the freedom to establish and provide services. In practice this means that the Agreement places an obligation on Member States not to introduce rules governing rights of establishment and to provide services that are more stringent than those in force at the time they became party to the ECAA with Turkey. In the case of the UK this was 1973.

In light of the Dari & Tum ECJ judgement the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) is currently reviewing its historical legislation to establish the most appropriate way of giving Turkish nationals the opportunity to seek permission to enter the United Kingdom to establish a business in the same manner that they had in 1973.

UKvisas will advise customers when and how visa applications under this category can be made once further information is available from the BIA, those who wish to apply for entry under the Innovator, Investor, Highly Skilled Migrant and Businessman rules can continue to do so and these will be considered under the normal procedures in place for them.

Fury over treatment of migrants

There have been “glaring errors” in dealing with complaints about the treatment of immigrants being deported from the UK, a report says. It criticises the denial of rights to those dealt with by private firms on behalf of the Immigration Service.

The Border and Immigration Agency’s Complaints Audit Committee adds that “upwards of 20%” of records it has sought have been missing.

One man told the BBC he had been beaten up in a van by security guards.

‘Not thorough’

The committee’s report, for 2006/07, says investigations into misconduct complaints have been “poor”.

Only 8% of complainants were interviewed and 89% of investigations were “neither balanced nor thorough”.

As a result, 83% of replies were “indefensible”.

The committee – appointed by the Home Office – found 20% of records it had tried to look at had gone missing.

There could only be a “most limited assurance on the quality and integrity of complaints management information we have audited”, it added.

Some 71% of misconduct complaints were not completed within time targets.

The report says serious misconduct complaints remain a source of “grave concern to us because of the risks of injury or death, wrongful arrest and civil liability arising from the arrest, detention and removal of failed asylum seekers”.

Of those misconduct complaints received, 19% were over criminal behaviour – up from 12% in 2005/06.

‘Punched’

One asylum seeker, Apollo Okello, told the BBC he had been bundled onto a plane at Heathrow and refused permission to see his lawyer, with the security guards knowing he already had permission to stay in the UK.

He struggled and was beaten up in the back of a van, he said.

He added:” That’s where I was punched – my ribs, my eyes, my neck, my back.

“I was crying, shouting, crying, shouting, then one of his colleagues was very, very aggressive to me…

“Told me that these black monkeys don’t want to go back to their country.”

In 95% of cases, those investigating the complaints had been from the companies under investigation.

BBC home affairs editor Mark Easton said it had been the most critical report into the Home Office’s work that he had seen.

In a statement, the Home Office said: “The Border and Immigration Agency has been actively working with the committee to design a radical, new complaints system which will come on line from February 2008.”

UKVISAS LAUNCHES NEW VISA APPLICATION FORMS

New visa application forms (VAFs) will be introduced worldwide on 29 October. From 29 October 2007 all visa applicants will need to use these new, improved forms to make an application.

Visa application centres and visa sections overseas will not accept old application forms after 16 November 2007.

The new visa application forms are listed below:

Application form VAF1 – Visitor
Application form VAF2 – Employment
Application form VAF3 – Student
Application form VAF4 – Settlement
Application form VAF5 – EEA Family Permit
Application form VAF6 – Direct Airside Transit
Application form VAF7 – Right of Abode
Application form VAF8 – Overseas Territories