Home Office to target employers who hire people with no right to be in UK with new programme

LONDON Aug 21: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said that she plans to achieve the highest rate of deportations since 2018 for refused asylum seekers, and said the Home Office will launch a new intelligence-driven illegal working programme to target employers who hire people with no right to be in the UK.

In the UK, if you are an employer you can be sent to jail for 5 years and have to pay an unlimited fine if you’re found guilty of employing someone who you knew or had ‘reasonable cause to believe’ did not have the right to work in the UK.

This includes, for example, if you had any reason to believe that:

they did not have leave (permission) to enter or remain in the UK
their leave had expired
they were not allowed to do certain types of work
their papers were incorrect or false

The measure is part of a wider effort to get a grip on the UK’s immigration and asylum system.

Labour promised in its election-winning manifesto to create a new Border Security Command to tackle people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel, using money diverted from the now-scrapped Rwanda scheme.

The Tories spent around £700m on the plan but not a single asylum seeker was sent there under it because of legal setbacks, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declaring it “dead and buried” days after taking office.

As well as the extra beds, 100 new specialist intelligence officers will be brought into the National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK-wide body which has around 70 active investigations into people smuggling and trafficking groups.

This comes on top of the 50% uplift in the number of NCA officers stationed in Europol.

In addition, a new illegal working programme will be rolled out to investigate and target bosses who illegally employ people with no right to remain.

Home secretary to recruit 100 specialists to target people-smuggling gangs

The home secretary has announced plans to recruit 100 investigators and intelligence officers to target people-smuggling gangs as part of measures to clampdown on illegal migration.

Yvette Cooper said that the National Crime Agency (NCA) will find specialists to dismantle and disrupt organised immigration crime networks that exploit asylum seekers.

The plans were announced after immigration was forced to the top of the political agenda by this summer’s far-right riots.

Senior Labour figures remain acutely aware that failing to get to grips with immigration in general, and small boats in particular, will be exploited by opponents on the right such as Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party.

Cooper said she plans to achieve the highest rate of deportations since 2018 for refused asylum seekers, and said the Home Office will launch a new intelligence-driven illegal working programme to target employers who hire people with no right to be in the UK.

So far there have been nine returns flights in the last six weeks, including the largest-ever chartered return flight, the Home Office said.

Staff are being redeployed to increase the removal of refused asylum seekers, which has dropped by 40% since 2010, the Home Office said. Three hundred caseworkers have been reassigned to enforced and voluntary returns, it added.

The strategy is being overseen by Bas Javid, the Home Office’s director general for immigration enforcement and the brother of the former Tory chancellor Sajid Javid.

The NCA is leading about 70 investigations into major people-smuggling and trafficking groups, the Home Office said.

Cooper said: “Our new border security command is already gearing up, with new staff being urgently recruited and additional staff already stationed across Europe. They will work with European enforcement agencies to find every route in to smashing the criminal smuggling gangs organising dangerous boat crossings.

“And by increasing enforcement capabilities and returns, we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long.”

More than half of the passengers travelling to the UK on small boats have come from countries so unstable there is no chance they can be returned. They include Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq and Sudan. Almost all come from states with which the UK has no agreement to return those not granted asylum.