in prison, or receive an unlimited fine, but these provisions
do not presently apply to people who may have entered the
country illegally or have overstayed a visa.
The new bill proposes a new criminal offence of ‘Illegal
Working’, which will mean that undocumented migrants
can be arrested, imprisoned for up to 12 months and have
their wages seized as the proceeds of crime. On top of
these measures, immigration officials will have the power
to search and seize properties and close down businesses.
These will build on existing provisions which allow
immigration officials to deport those found guilty of working
illegally. By compounding existing punitive powers, this
bill could drive an already vulnerable and impoverished
minority even further away from much-needed support and
leave them more susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous
employers.
By lumping together labour market enforcement – designed
to tackle exploitation – and immigration enforcement –
designed to seek out and exclude certain people from the
country – this bill could foster a culture of fear, allowing
exploitative employers to hold even greater sway over
undocumented workers who will face the constant threat of
losing whatever meagre income they may have managed to
amass from working in often appalling conditions.
Another feature of forced labour within the UK, and one
which this legislation does not sufficiently address, is poor
awareness. Many victims, often unbeknownst to them,
actually have rights to work as EU nationals to work in the
UK. According to the National Crime Agency (NCA) Strategic
Assessment ‘The Nature and Scale of Human Trafficking
in 2013 (published 30/09/2014),78% of potential victims
exploited for labour are EEA nationals who are working
legally in the UK. The hostile climate fostered by legislation
like this will do little to encourage people like this to make
enquiries into the exact nature of their legal status, thus
inadvertently exacerbating the problem it may be seeking to
tackle.
Accommodation
Another troubling measure included in the Bill is that
which increases the punishment which can be imposed
upon landlords who are found to have let property to
undocumented migrants. Although the 2014 Act contained
measures which meant that landlords who failed to check
the status of their tenants could be fined, the new Bill goes
further, and threatens landlord with imprisonment for up to
5 years.
Given the complexity of many immigration cases and the
difficulty which even seasoned experts can face when asked
to decide a person’s precise status, landlords might be led
to take the path of least risk which could ultimately amount
to racial profiling. The very fact that some responsibility
for initiating such complex cases is now being passed on
to members of the public without legal or law enforcement
expertise, is in itself a matter of grave concern.
Asylum & Deportation
Under the Asylum Support measures automatic support for
families who have been refused asylum will be withdrawn,
leaving parents and their children facing the possibility of
hunger and homelessness with, in most cases, no leave to
appeal. Most of the grounds upon which people could appeal
against deportation, meanwhile, were removed in the 2014
Act, leaving just human rights issues as a viable basis for
such an appeal.
The current bill takes this process further, making it legal
to deport people even if they’ve launched an appeal on the
grounds that the refusal of asylum was a breach of their
basic human rights. This means that families who may have
a strong case on the grounds of Human Rights issues will be
forced to wait for the Home Office wheels of justice to turn
whilst residing in the country which they sought to leave by
seeking asylum in the first place.
In light of the overarching aims of the UN Global Goals to
promote human rights, tackle inequality and further global
development efforts, it is unsett