Cllr Abdul Malik said the system is broken and small businesses were not criminals
11:09, 18 Jul 2025Updated 12:36, 18 Jul 2025
Business owner Abdul Malik(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
A prominent city councillor and Bristol businessman has called for an end to Home Office immigration raids, and said he has ‘had enough’ of the scapegoating of businesses that are employing undocumented workers. Abdul Malik said his businesses have been raided before, and the system is ‘broken’ because many of the employees discovered by the Government agencies are eligible to work, but delays and failures in bureaucracy mean they are waiting months for the paperwork to arrive.
Cllr Malik (Green, Ashley) spoke out after Bristol Live reported that a crackdown by the Home Office on undocumented workers and an increase in the fines that were being dished out to mostly small businesses hit by the raids was leading to some businesses in Bristol going bust.
In just the last three months of 2024, 13 businesses across Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset were fined a total of more than £700,000, with nail bars, restaurants, newsagents, car washes and a healthcare recruitment agency fined anything from a few thousand to as much as £120,000.
The figures came from the regular quarterly update on a Government website that seeks to ‘name and shame’ businesses that are fined.
Cllr Malik said the root cause of the problem was twofold: successive Governments have refused to give refugees and asylum seekers the right to work while they wait for their asylum claims to be decided, and secondly that even when people are allowed to work in the UK, the system to obtain the correct paperwork is ‘broken’.
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“It’s not easy being a small business owner in this country right now, especially if you’re from a migrant background, or you’re part of the communities that get targeted first when the government needs a headline,” he said.
“I’ve had my businesses raided by immigration officers. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They come in like they’re kicking down the door of a criminal empire, when in reality, it’s just people trying to earn an honest living.
“They pull out their cameras, take photos of your staff, turn everything upside down, and treat you like you’re running a cartel—when all you’re doing is trying to get by. Then they make it sound like they’re cleaning up the streets,” he said.
READ MORE: Businesses fined £700,000 in Home Office illegal worker crackdownREAD MORE: Dramatic moment immigration enforcers raid restaurant near Bristol
“The truth is, this system is broken—and everyone knows it. Refugees and asylum seekers are banned from working in the UK while they wait for the Home Office to process their cases.
“Some of them wait for months, others for years. In that time, they’re given £60 a week to live on, if they’re lucky. No chance to work, no way to provide for their families, no dignity.
“What do you expect people to do? Sit in a hotel room staring at the wall while their life disappears? Of course not. People want to work. People want to contribute. They want to stand on their own two feet. But the system traps them,” he said.
“So what happens? People find ways to survive. They take cash-in-hand jobs because they have no other option. They clean kitchens, drive delivery vans, work in back rooms, pick fruit, fix roofs, do the jobs no one else wants to do—and they do it for next to nothing, because the legal route is closed off to them. Then the government calls them criminals. But who really forced them into that situation?” he asked.
Home Office Imigration Enforcement officers on a raid in Nailsea, North Somerset in 2023(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach PLC)
“We have to be real: most of the people caught in these so-called immigration raids are not hardened criminals. They’re workers. They’re parents. They’re people who want to live in peace and build a future. They don’t want to break the law—they’re trapped by it. And while they’re risking everything for a few hours of work, the gangmasters and exploiters—the real villains—keep lining their pockets.
Cllr Malik said the pressure is entirely put upon business owners who have to navigate a complex immigration system to discover if a prospective employee is legitimately allowed to work, and if paperwork isn’t returned by the authorities, it’s the business owners who are held responsible.
“Small businesses like mine are stuck in the middle. We’re expected to act like immigration experts, checking documents, understanding a complicated legal system even the Home Office can’t run properly. If we make a mistake, they fine us tens of thousands of pounds.
“But what they don’t tell you is this: half the time the paperwork is delayed or lost because of Home Office chaos in the first place. I’ve had staff waiting for paperwork for months while the government sits on their hands. Yet when the knock on the door comes, it’s us they blame. This isn’t just bad policy—it’s cruelty,” he added.
READ MORE: ‘Amid the chaos of far-right protests and violence I saw the best of Bristol’READ MORE: Bristol welcomed almost 2,000 refugees over past six years
Cllr Malik claimed successive Governments have been creating this situation ‘on purpose’. “They’ve created a system where people are pushed underground,” he said. “They’ve made it impossible for people to work legally, then punish them when they try to survive.
“It’s not just heartless—it’s dangerous. It fuels the black market, drives down wages, and makes exploitation worse. And then they point the finger at migrants and small business owners, pretending they’ve found the problem, when actually they’ve created it,” he added.
Cllr Malik has been a prominent businessman, mainly in the Easton area of Bristol, for decades, and a senior figure within local mosques. He was elected as a city councillor in 2024 for the Green Party, having previously stood for the Lib Dems at the 2015 General Election, joined the Labour Party in 2017 and switched to the Green Party in the run up before the 2024 local council elections.
Abdul Malik(Image: Paul Gillis/Bristol Live)
On the question of immigration and people from other countries being allowed to work in the UK, Cllr Malik said that, as a Green councillor, he ‘believes in a different approach’.
“The Green Party believes in fairness and compassion. We want to give people the right to work after six months of waiting for an asylum decision—because keeping people in poverty helps no one,” he said.
READ MORE: Asylum seekers in hotels near Bristol given ‘appalling’ food on a ‘daily basis’
“We want to end the hostile environment policies that turn businesses, landlords, doctors, and teachers into border guards. We believe in safe, legal routes for migration and an end to the system that treats human beings like problems to be managed rather than people to be welcomed.
“And let’s get something else straight: immigration is not the reason people are struggling in this country. It’s not why bills are sky-high or wages are too low. That’s down to political choices made in Westminster—choices that protect the rich and punish the rest. But instead of fixing the economy, they stir up fear about migrants to distract from their failures.
“I’ve had enough. Enough of the raids. Enough of the scapegoating. Enough of the cruelty dressed up as policy. It’s time to fix the system, not punish the people stuck in it. Bristol is better than this. We’re a city of sanctuary. We know what solidarity looks like. And we won’t be bullied into turning our backs on our neighbours, our workers, or our friends,” he added.
“We stand together—and we speak out when something’s wrong. And this is wrong,” he said.
Immigration Enforcement officers regularly carry out checks at restaurants across the region
The head of the Home Office enforcement teams said as well as cracking down on undocumented people working when they shouldn’t be allowed to, one of the reasons why businesses are targeted is because undocumented workers are at increased risk of being exploited, as they are far less able to report how they are treated by unscrupulous employers.
Eddy Montgomery, the director of Enforcement, Compliance and Crime at the Home Office said he hoped the increased levels of raids and fines ‘sends a strong signal that there is no hiding place from the law’. “We will continue to ramp up our activity to ensure those involved face the full consequences,” he said.
“We also know that many people who end up working illegally are often subjected to extremely poor conditions, so we will continue to do all we can to safeguard and protect the most vulnerable,” he added.
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