Twenty-eight Indians working illegally in the UK were arrested by the UK Border Agency on Tuesday in its largest-ever swoop on suspected illegal workers in Leicester. Twelve Indians had been arrested in Leicester on May 26, taking the total number of Indians arrested for working illegally to 40.
The British home office plans to deport the 40 illegal workers back to India. The immigration raids were part of “Operation Serbal” and had been planned for several months. The campaign will run until the end of summer.
The Tory-LibDem coalition government is facing strong pressure over controlling immigration levels in the country despite imposing a permanent annual cap on work visas. Britain already is cracking down on illegal workers, sham marriages and bogus colleges and has plans to review student visas, the asylum system and family immigration.
“This operation is one of the largest we have conducted in the Midlands and reinforces our determination to identify and remove more people with no legal right to work in this country,” immigration minister Damian Green said.
The businesses, which employed 40 Indians illegally, face up fines of £10,000 for each illegal worker for employing them without proper work permits, the UK Border Agency said. Since March 2008, tough penalties have been introduced for employers who hire illegal workers.
The UK Border Agency also discovered that a number of the employers in Leicester were paying their workers less than the national minimum wage.
More than 70 immigration officers from the UK Border Agency, supported by the police, raided 12 textile businesses at Spinney Hills in Leicester on Tuesday and checked the immigration status of about 80 workers. A total of 33 men and women, including 28 Indian nationals, were found to have no right to be in the UK.