| Recent statistics show that the UK Border Agency is concentrating its efforts on investigating and checking employers considered to be at high risk of employing illegal migrant workers. With raids on restaurants, shops and most recently nail bars in Nottingham, the issue of immigration law has been brought to the forefront of a lot of employers’ minds.
The Government has introduced changes which makes an employer responsible for preventing illegal migrants working in the UK. The changes essentially shifts the burden of carrying out certain immigration checks from the Home Office to the individual employer with very serious civil and criminal penalties.
Ghuffar Usman, Immigration specialist at leading Midlands law firm Cartwright King said “Businesses are finding this new system complicated. There are now much tighter rules and regulations for foreign workers and employers, but the message needs to be reinforced that if they do not carry out these checks properly there could be financial and legal consequences”.
He added “It is imperative that employers carry out the necessary checks on all employees to protect themselves and to establish a statutory defence against the civil penalty by checking, copying and retaining a specified combination of original documents”.
These regulations will affect a lot of businesses and those who have concerns or questions are advised to contact firms such as Cartwright King. Cartwright King have a specialist team of immigration solicitors assisting local businesses in preventing illegal working and ensure that they have robust checks and procedures in place
|
