Chief Immigration Inspector: One in Four Foreign Care Workers Abusing Visa Rules

A senior citizen in his chair at The Fed care home in Prestbury, England, on April 23, 2021. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A quarter of foreign care workers are working illegally, the chief inspector of borders and immigration has said.

On Monday, Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration David Neal told The Times Of London that thousands of migrant care workers are believed to be abusing UK visa rules.

The migrants are allowed to work under a policy which restricts them to jobs on the shortage occupation list which includes care workers and home carers, designed to fill catastrophic labour shortages in the industry.

Visas

However he told the publication that the Home Office had issued 275 visas to a care home that did not exist and 1,234 to a company that stated it had only four staff when given a license to operate.

He said that it is these two examples that have led to more than 1,500 migrants being allowed to move to the UK under the guise of having a job in the social care sector.

Mr. Neal’s three-year appointment in the role ends this March, but the government will not reappoint him.

Mr. Neal submitted his report earlier this month but it is one of 13 reports that he has submitted in the past year that remain unpublished by the Home Office.

The Epoch Times has not been able to verify his claims independently and has contacted the Home Office for a response.

A government spokeswoman told PA Media: “Care workers make a vital contribution to society, but immigration is not the long-term answer to our social care needs.

“That is why measures due to be laid in Parliament will cut the rising numbers of visas granted to overseas care workers and address significant concerns about high levels of non-compliance, worker exploitation and abuse within the sector of overseas workers.

“It is also why the government has announced that providers in England will only be able to sponsor migrant workers if they are undertaking activities regulated by the Care Quality Commission.”

‘Far too High’

Last December, Home Secretary James Cleverly announced future changes to visa rules to reduce immigration, including banning newly arriving care workers from bringing immediate family.

Ministers said they believed that immigration is “far too high.”

The UK’s population has grown by the equivalent of a Birmingham-sized city in the past two years, figures show. The Office for National Statistics said a record of 745,000 more people moved to the UK than those who moved away last year. It was revised up from a previous estimate of 606,000.

International students, social care workers and their immediate family members (dependants) are the main contributors to the recent increase in net migration, along with humanitarian visa schemes and people claiming asylum, according to the Migration Observatory.

Safeguarding Checks

Earlier this month, campaigners expressed concerns that asylum seekers are being fast-tracked into the care and health sectors to address staff shortages and could be bypassing safeguarding checks as many have destroyed their documentation.

Under Freedom of Information data obtained by The Telegraph, it was found nearly 16,000 asylum seekers in 2022, including those who crossed the Channel in small boats, have been allowed to work in occupations in which there are recognised staff shortages, such as construction and agriculture.

However, questions were raised about how proper safeguarding checks can be applied to a workforce lacking documentation, even though care homes are desperate to tackle staff shortages.

In the UK, there is no way of working in a care home with the elderly or children without a Disclosure and Barring Service check so that employers can examine the criminal records of job applicants.

However, asylum claimants and illegal immigrants overwhelmingly destroy identity evidence, making it almost impossible to establish someone’s true identity if they choose to falsify it.

Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell told The Epoch Times at the time that he was “profoundly disturbed by the shocking revelations.”

PA Media contributed to this report.