A major surge in immigration enforcement has led to more than 1,000 arrests in Wales and the West of England since the election.<\/p>\n
The crackdown is part of a nationwide effort to combat illegal working in the UK.<\/p>\n
Immigration Enforcement teams have been focusing on those who abuse the UK immigration system and exploit vulnerable people, as part of the Government’s Plan for Change.<\/p>\n
The initiative primarily targets employers who facilitate illegal working, often forcing migrants to work in dire conditions and for pay below the minimum wage.<\/p>\n
Restaurants, nail bars, and construction sites are among the businesses scrutinised.<\/p>\n
From July 5 last year to May 31, 1,477 visits resulted in 1,057 arrests, marking a 96 per cent and 114 per cent rise respectively compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n
This effort is part of a nationwide drive that has seen a 48 per cent increase in illegal working visits and a 51 per cent rise in arrests across the UK.<\/p>\n
Dame Angela Eagle, minister for border security and asylum, said: “These figures send a clear message: Illegal working will not be tolerated in the UK.<\/p>\n
“Under our Plan for Change, we are restoring order to the immigration system by introducing tougher laws and bolstering our enforcement action.<\/p>\n
“On our watch, there will be no hiding place from the law as we work to protect the integrity of our border.”<\/p>\n
In January, six Romanian nationals were arrested at a dairy farm in Llangedwyn for breaching their visit visas.<\/p>\n
Another visit to a solar farm in Anglesey on March 20 led to 16 arrests.<\/p>\n
The government is now introducing new laws to extend right-to-work checks on those hiring gig economy and zero-hours workers in sectors like construction, food delivery, beauty salons, and courier services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major surge in immigration enforcement has led to more than 1,000 arrests in Wales and the West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[64116,748,4884,62507,69603,16,69604,15,1764,69605],"class_list":{"0":"post-166337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-arrests","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-immigration-enforcement","12":"tag-immigration-system","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-uk-immigration-system","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales","17":"tag-working-in-the-uk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114645007264334390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}