Davenport Lyons is delighted to announce that it now offers Immigration Law Services.  Alexa Etheridge specialises in Commercial and Business Work Permits including Tier 1 and Tier 2 applications and highly skilled migrant programme applications.  If you have any queries regarding Immigration Law please contact Alexa. 

Employing Illegal Migrant Workers

The government has announced that from February 2008, there will be a new criminal offence of knowingly employing illegal migrant workers. Penalties for employers under the new law include incurring an unlimited fine and a prison sentence of up to two years. This offence will only apply where illegal migrant workers have been employed deliberately by employers in breach of their conditions of entry or stay.

A more minor civil offence of employing illegal migrant workers will also be brought in, with penalties for this offence including fines of up to £10,000. Employers who recruit and then employ migrant workers who have limited leave to enter or remain in the UK will have to conduct specific document checks, both upon recruitment and subsequently, in order to avoid liability for this civil offence. A code of practice has been published by the government which details how a civil penalty can be avoided which can be found here. Guidance has also been provided on how the level of fine will be determined, which will depend on the checks undertaken by the employer.

A new points-based immigration system is also to be phased in during 2008 as part of this package of reforms for highly-skilled migrant workers, but low skilled workers from outside the EU will not be able to get permission to work in the UK.