How many illegal migrants and visa overstayers live in the UK?

The short answer is that nobody knows, even the Home Office can only estimate the number of visa overstayers, illegal entrants or undocumented migrants there are in the UK.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated migration to the UK for just one year, ending June 2016, at over 650,000. Prior to the Brexit vote, immigration from the EU was the highest on record, while immigration from non-EU countries was similar to previous years, despite measures to curb it.

In another report, it has emerged that the number of EU nurses registering to work in the UK has dropped by 90% since the Brexit vote last June.

How do we work out the number of illegal immigrants?

Illegal immigrants in the UK exist largely as an unregistered collective, according to the New Statesman, because if the registered they would risk being deported and banned from returning to the UK for many years.

The ONS said that “by its very nature it is impossible to quantify accurately the number of people who are in the country illegally.” Population Surveys or the official Census figures are based on information provided voluntarily by householders.

The last official estimate was compiled in 2005 when the government assessed methods used by other countries to estimate their level of illegal immigration, and applied the finding to the UK. They predicted the number at 430,000, but the London School of Economics produced a report in 2007 estimating the number of ‘irregular’ migrants at 533,000. 

The Home Office collect “Immigration Enforcement Data”, such as number of enforcement raids based on tip-offs, number of people refused visa entry and number of overstayers deported from the UK.

In the second quarter of 2016 there were just 941 enforcement visit arrests. However, the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said that 40,896 immigrants were deported in 2015, which would include migrants refused visa extensions or overstaying students.

At 40,000 removals a year it would take almost 11 years to remove all illegal immigrants based on the government’s own estimates and assuming no increase in numbers.

The ippr estimated that it would take 20 years to remove 500,000 illegal migrants at a cost of £5 billion. It costs an average of £10,000 to remove someone from the UK, so those figures are not so far fetched.

Other organisations, such as Migration Watch, estimate much higher numbers of undocumented migrants and the number could be between 750,000 and 1,000,000 people living illegally in the UK. This has prompted calls for an amnesty, which even Boris Johnson supported when he was the London Mayor.

The 2016 Immigration Act will make life harder for illegal as well as legal migrants wishing to work in the UK on a working or student visa.

Private property owning landlords can be fined up to £3000 for letting to anyone who does not have the right to reside in the UK and can face criminal charges and jail for knowingly renting to illegal immigrants.

The UK is still an attractive place to work, start a business and buy property – no restrictions on foreign buyers - a vibrant mortgage market with record low interest rates.

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See also:

Uber offering free English courses to migrant worker drivers

EU nurses coming to the UK drops by 90% since Brexit

Immigration Act 2016 - main highlights in a nutshell

Minimum Salary for Tier 2 Work Permits to Rise to £30,000 as UK Immigration gets Tougher for Non-EU Migrants

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Minimum Salary for Tier 2 Work Permits to Rise to £30,000 as UK Immigration gets Tougher for Non-EU Migrants

If you think 2016 was a tough year for non-EU migrants, 2017 is about to get even harder, especially for anyone considering coming to the UK on a Tier 2 (General) working visa, such as a nurse.

The Immigration Act 2016 will see the Home Office bring in sweeping changes from April to the Tier 2 General work permit rules, including increasing the minimum salary requirement to £30,000, with no transitional arrangement for those sponsored between 24 November 2016 and April 2017. 

Nursing will remain on the Shortage Occupation List, as there are still thousands of nurse jobs in the UK. But for the first time employers will be required to carry out a ‘Resident Labour Market Test’ before assigning a nurse a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), even if the job is on the national shortage list.

The new minimum salary will automatically exclude many jobs and is above the UK average income, such as band 5 NHS nurses who start as around £26,000,

In addition, a new ‘Genuineness’ test will mean that Tier 2 applicants must satisfy the Home Office or entry clearance officer that they genuinely intend to undertake and are capable of undertaking the job for which the CoS is assigned.This could include attending an interview for entry clearance visas or further leave to remain.

Employers will be hit by a new tax or 'Immigration Skills Charge' of £1000 per year, per migrant to 'encourage' them to invest in training resident workers. There will be an exemption for PhD occupations, Tier 2 (ICT-Graduate Trainees) and Tier 4 students switching to Tier 2. The Home Office will also have more powers to search and seize documents from an employer, such as wage slips and time sheets, in order to build a case against them and an illegal worker.

Migrants will no longer have a 28-day ‘grace period’ in which to apply for further leave to remain, which means you could be branded a visa overstayer on your immigration record.

UK settlement rules are being tightened from April 2016, after which some Tier 2 visa holders will have to be earning a minimum of £35,000 per annum in order to apply for permanent residency or indefinite leave to remain. If you do not meet the salary requirement, you will not be able to stay in the UK for longer than six years and will not be able to reapply for another Tier 2 visa until you have completed a 12-month ‘cooling-off’ period outside the UK.

The Brexit, or leave EU vote, will do little to curb European immigration in the next few years as arguments rage over what type of exit Britain wants. This week the Supreme Court ruled that the Article 50 process, the mechanism required to trigger UK's exit from the European Union, must be put before MP's in Parliament. And with EU leaders insisting that free movement of labour is non-negotiable when it comes to thrashing out any trade deals, it looks like the only option for Home Secretary Amber Rudd to reduce immigration to the UK is to continue restricting non-EU migrants.

Across the pond in America today, Donald Trump has announced a halt on the U.S. refugee immigration programme for a temporary period. In his inauguration speech Trump spoke of 'America first' and wants to boost employment for resident workers. However, America still has a shortage of around one million nurses and the IT sector in the U.S and UK needs to attract the brightest and best for their growing digital economy.

The Immigration Act will have a number of consequences for Tier 2 employers and migrant workers. I will be giving you further guidance on the settlement (ILR) changes, as well as other changes, such as Tier 4 student visa switching rules, in future articles.

See also:

Uber offering free English courses to migrant worker drivers

Immigration Act 2016 - main highlights in a nutshell

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Home Office raid on Byron Burger Bar unleashes social media frenzy as 35 migrant workers deported

You may have read about the recent social media fury over claims that Byron, a UK burger chain with restaurants in London and Scotland, collaborated with the Home Office to have 35 of its staff deported back to countries including Brazil, Nepal, Egypt and Albania. Byrony Gordon, writing for The Telegraph gives an interesting slant on the backlash that followed, which became Byron’s worst media nightmare.

The Home Office announced that 35 people had been arrested for immigration offences at a number of restaurants across London, and added that the operation had been carried out with the "full co-operation" of Byron earlier this month.

The story continues that the business had carried out the correct "right to work" checks on staff, but had been shown false or counterfeit documentation and as they had been able to demonstrate this they did not incur civil penalty action, the Home Office said.

In other words, by “working with” the Home Office, the company was obeying the law by allowing (they would be compelled to do anyway) the Government access to workers who had used fake documentation to obtain jobs, which in effect deprives other people (immigrants included) of work in the UK.

The Telegraph reported that Unions claimed migrant workers were ‘lured to their fates’ under false pretences – a health and safety meeting – as if these staff hadn’t themselves behaved in a similarly underhand fashion. The Unite union complained that the ‘deportees wouldn’t get redundancy’. Byrony gasps: “imagine, defrauding your employers and then not getting a pay-off when they uncover your duplicity!”

What followed after the story broke is incredible. A protest hashtag was unleashed on Twitter: #BoycottByron. Then on Friday, thousands of cockroaches and locusts were released into two of the chain’s restaurants in London.

Virtuous people on social media announced they would not be spending £8 on a burger, to show ‘solidarity’ for the deported workers. A mass protest was arranged over the weekend at the company’s Holborn branch.   

Twitter was deluged with accusations that Byron was happy to “exploit” illegal workers before throwing them to the wolves when it looked like it might get found out.

But it could also be argued that the company was merely fulfilling its legal duty by checking its workers’ documents, which it later found to be bogus. The documents fooled Byron (it is still not that easy to fully verify documents), but were obviously uncovered by the Home Office enforcement team, which has the ultimate responsibility to verify immigration status and deport illegal immigrants and visa overstayers.

If you want to avoid Home Office raids and a painful fine, make sure you follow the correct immigration document checking procedures, which you can find on the Home Office website, audit files regularly and seek advice if you are unsure.

In the meantime, there are also reports that the Cedars detention centre is to b closed by the Home Office, now under the leadership of new Home Secretary Amber Rudd, following negative reports.

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Illegal Working Crackdown Announced By Minister – Employers Risk £20,000 fine

In the latest government crackdown on illegal working, Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire, has warned that businesses employing illegal migrants face "the full force of government machinery" and risk fines of up to £20,000 per worker. However, at the current Home Office removal rate it will take 4000 years to find and deport all illegal overstayers from the UK.

The Minister said that “rogue employers” who give work to illegal immigrants and visa overstayers were denying UK citizen’s jobs.

Immigration officers are specifically targeting raids on cleaning firms, building sites and care homes according to The Times.

A study carried out by the London School of Economics estimates that there are 618,000 "irregular" residents in the UK, however, campaign group Migration Watch said the figures is closer to 1.1 million.

In 2006 the ippr think tank estimated that it would cost £5 billion and take 20 years to remove 500,000 illegal immigrants and overstayers thought to be in the UK at that time.

Figures published in the Daily Mail this week claimed tha that last year Home Office Immigration Enforcement teams arrested around 700 people and removed just 132 overstayers. At this rate it will take 4600 years to remove the existing illegal immigrants from the UK! Removal figures are probably closer to the thousands per year, but it still means it will take 600 years to remove 600,000 visa overstayers.  

Almost 10 years on from the ippr report, despite numerous measures to tighten the Immigration Rules and reduce grounds on which to appeal against a refusal, the Home Office has an even bigger task on its hands as hundreds of migrants attempt to enter the UK illegally through Calais.

Make sure your employee files comply with the law or face a £20,000 fine

The Conservative government have made progress and more raids being launched by Immigration Enforcement teams, HM Revenue & Customs, the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority and Health and Safety Executive to tackle the problem.

Other measures to deter overstayers, brought in under the 2014 Immigration Act, include forcing landlords to check the immigration status of their tenants and a reduction in the number of immigration appeals.

Employers can be fined up to £20,000 for employing each illegal immigrant, and, if they knowingly employ the worker they could spend up to two years in prison.

NHS Trusts are still short of nurses and doctors and are recruiting overseas. Tier 2 work permits and working visa sponsorship are being offered to qualified international nurses with IELTS 7.00 and the first stage of NMC registration.

If you need immigration advice of a full file audit service for employers, drop me an email. 

Conservative Government Introduce New NHS Health Charge For UK Migrants

UK Home Office will impose in a new ‘health surcharge’ on non-EU migrants to gain access to the NHS treatment at UK hospitals. Staring on 6 April, all citizens from outside of Europe who want to to live in the UK for longer than six months will be required to pay a ‘health surcharge’ before being issue with a visa or leave to remain.

Until now, all non-EEA national migrants coming to work, study or join family members automatically received free medical treatment in the UK’s NHS hospital and had the same access a permanent resident or British Citizen.

This has now changed as the Government wants to ensure “that those coming to the UK make an appropriate financial contribution to the cost of their healthcare”.

The health surcharge charge will also apply to non-EEA nationals already in the UK who apply to extend their stay.

The cost of health surcharge will be £200 per year and £150 per year for students - payable at the you apply for your UK visa.

UK Visa applicants will have to pay up-front for the total period of their stay in the UK, regardless of whether or not you actually use the NHS system.

The surcharge levels were set by the Conservative-led coalition Government, now fighting an election to come back into power on 7 May 2015, after taking into account the wide range of free health services available to migrants coming to live in the UK, whilst balancing that the valuable contribution they make to the economy.

Immigration and Security Minister, James Brokenshire said:

“The health surcharge will play a vital role in ensuring Britain’s most cherished public service is provided on a basis that is fair to all who use it. For generations, the British public have paid their taxes to help make the NHS what it is today – the surcharge will mean temporary migrants will also pay their way.

“And by keeping the surcharge at a competitive level, we are also recognising the contribution temporary migrants make to the wider economy.”

The Conservatives have been critical of the previous Labour administration which allowed open access to the NHS under what became known as ‘health tourism’, where people flew into to the UK to deliver a baby or receive treatment for diabetes or HIV.

The visa changes do not affect UK visitors coming to the UK on a standard visit visa, and tourists will have to pay for any treatment they receive from the NHS at the point of receiving it. 

Administering this at the point of treatment, for instance following an accident or in an A & E ward, has proved difficult in the past.

Intra-company transfer (ICT Tier 2 visa) will be exempt from the charges but must still complete the process through the surcharge website.

The surcharge levels are set at a lower rate the cost of medical insurance required in some competitor nations, and is less than Croatian nationals pay in medical insurance in order to obtain a Yellow Card permit to work and study in the UK.

I you are an overseas student, the health charge amounts to only 1% of the total cost of studying in the UK for a three year undergraduate course, the Home Office said.

Those who have paid will enjoy the same access to the NHS as a UK permanent resident for the duration of their visa. The money generated by the health surcharge will go directly to funding the NHS.

Migrants and students already here will not be affected by the change unless they extend their leave to remain in the UK.

Other recent tighter immigration measure include a crackdown on sham marriages and a reduction in the right of appeal against deportation of visa overstayers.

Home Office Crackdown on Immigration Appeals Will See More Deportations

UK Home Secretary Theresa May’s visa restrictions contained in the new 2014 Immigration Act are already starting to bite over staying immigrants. New Immigration Rules empowering the Home Office to deport visa overstayers and illegal immigrants - in some cases with no right of appeal - much faster are forcing migrants and their families to leave the UK.

Legal migrants, such as students applying for visa extensions, can also be arrested by UK Border Officers and removed from the UK if their applications are refused by the Home Office and they no longer have valid leave to remain.

The booming UK economy, and more job openings than in anywhere else in the EU, has resulted in an increase in EU immigration from countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Romania. More and more Filipinos with EU passports are coming to the UK to work in care or nursing jobs in the NHS.

David Cameron has promised an in-out European Union referendum if the Conservatives are voted back into power on 7 May, the only mainstream party to give British people the option of leaving the EU. 

Election surveys all show that immigration is high on the list of British voter concerns, coming only second to the NHS and ahead of the economy! Around 40% of those polled want to see further restrictions particularly on immigrants claiming benefits, despite the fact that migrants are less likely to claim benefits.

On the whole, the British public do not mind migrants who come to the UK to work in jobs where there are shortages, such as care work or to fill the huge number of vacancies for nurses in the NHS or nursing homes.

Many NHS hospitals are again recruiting nurses and doctors in the EU and the Philippines, so if you are a nurse make sure you check the UK NMC website and obtain an IELTS English language test overall band score of 7.00. You will need a year’s clinical experience in a hospital – obviously not in a call centre or as a private or company nurse.

Tier 2 work permits are available for nurses, higher managerial level jobs or in ‘shortage occupations’, but not for care givers. Beware of fake job advertisements offering working visas for unskilled jobs in care or catering and stick to POEA approved agencies.

Concept Care Solutions are on the LPP framework list of agencies approved to recruit overseas nurses for NHS hospital jobs.

For more information on UK jobs, immigration advice, help with Sponsorship, Work Permits, Visa, ILR, Settlement, Citizenship, Dependant Visa, Leave to Remain or visa refusal, email Immigration@londonccs.com. 

UK visa overstayers still here despite £30 million Home Office illegal immigration crackdown

A new immigration report has slammed the Government and Home Office for failing to find and deport thousands of foreign nationals overstaying and living illegally in the UK.

The Home Office has been criticised for failing to crack down on the number of foreign nationals who have overstayed their visas in the UK.

The inspector of borders and immigration John Vine said the Government had failed to reduce the number of 'overstayers' despite a flagship Home Office scheme costing millions of pounds designed to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the UK.

Mr Vine said the ‘immigration refusal pool’, or the numberof foreign nationals refused leave to remain in the UK after 2008, was 174,057 in June 2012.

That visa refusal figure was relatively unchanged in the same period this year and remained at 173,562.

Mr Vine said:

"Any failure to take action against foreign nationals who overstay their permission to be in the UK has the potential to undermine public confidence in immigration control."

The Home Office awarded a multi-million pound contract to outsourcing firm Capita in 2012 to review and, where possible, close the records of foreign nationals in the migration refusal pool.

But according to Mr Vine, Capita has not only failed to deliver on the Government's ambition to crack down on illegal 'overstayers' it has also overstated its successes.

The report highlights a sample of 57 migrant records closed by Capita after stating that the overstayer had left the country. Inspectors found that 16 – around one quarter - had been ‘closed in error’.

This would amount to 1,140 records in 2013/14, 25% of the 4,080 people Capita reported to have left the UK that year, may still be illegally staying in the country. 

"I was disappointed to find a high level of inaccuracy in the classification of MRP records, with more than a quarter of departures in my sample being incorrectly recorded," Mr Vine added.

"Considerable improvements in the Home Office's capability to monitor, progress, and prioritise the immigration enforcement caseload will be needed to deliver its strategy for reducing the level of irregular migration."

Immigration and Security Minister James Brokenshire defended the Home Office:

"We inherited an immigration system in complete disarray, which turned a blind eye to hundreds of thousands of people with no right to be here, and made no attempt to remove them or even to properly identify the scale of the problem.

"Under the UK Border Agency there was no systematic plan to deal with illegal migrants other than failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals. We scrapped the failing UK Border Agency and brought its work back under the control of ministers partly in order to sort out that mess."

The Government has introduced a new Immigration Act, which cuts the number of human rights type visa appeals blocking the deportation of an illegal immigrant from 17 to 4 

Immigration specialist Cynthia Barker said that the problem of visa overstayers will take years to solve:

"The UK still has no proper system to count people in and out of its borders, so nobody really knows how many overstayers and illegal immigrants there are in the UK. 

"Research by the think tank ippr, suggests that the illegal immigration figure is at least 500,000, which it estimates would take £5 billion and 20 years to deport and remove all of the overstayers.

"The longer an illegal migrants stays in the UK the more chance they have of staying, for instance due to right to a family life under article 8 or through a long stay concession or amnesty."

The failure of the campaign to remove overstaying migrants and students included the ‘go home’ vans and Capita’s bungled 40,000 text messages to so-called illegal immigrants and visa overstayers, asking them to leave the UK. Many of the messages were sent in error to British citizens.

150,000 Tier 4 student notifications of change backlog allowed thousands to overstay visas

John Vine, the Chief Inspector of immigration, admits that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has a backlog of 150,000 ‘notifications about changes in Tier 4 students circumstances’ sent to them by colleges and universities, which means they do not know who has left the country and who has overstayed their visas. The latest UKBA fiasco, reveled in the latest Chief Inspector’s report this week, has allowed thousands of overseas students to potentially overstay in Britain when they should have had their visas curtailed. Mr Vine, has confirmed that at the time of his inspection in May there was a backlog of over 150,000 notifications about changes in students' circumstances, which includes discontinuing studies, failing to enrol on their courses or breaching the conditions of their visas. In John Vine’s report, published this week, Vine says: "As a result, there could potentially be thousands of migrants in the UK who were not complying with the conditions of their visa and whose leave should have been curtailed by the agency but had not been. "One senior manager informed us that at the time of the inspection there were potentially 26,000 students whose leave should have been curtailed and who should have had enforcement action taken against them." The backlog of notifications about changes in the circumstances of overseas students dates back to March 2009 when Tier 4 of the five tier points based system was launched. The problem with Tier 4 is that although it was supposed to be a fully computerised system, it was actually launched as a paper based manual system. Many commentators say ill-prepared points system has ended in tears. Visas were dished out all too easily and non-compliant students reported by the colleges were allowed to overstay their visas. Private colleges have long been aware that change of circumstance reports, such as a student dropping out of a course, sent to the UKBA are rarely even acknowledged let alone acted upon. Now the UKBA is spending millions of pounds of tax payers money employing private companies to track them down – shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Why didn’t the UKBA deal with them when they had their addresses at the time they were reported? Meanwhile UKBA bosses pay themselves massive bonuses, which the Chairman of Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz MP says should be repaid following reports that UKBA officers misled Parliament over another backlog of asylum cases. The UKBA launched ‘Operation Mayapple’ (which sounds like something out of a Bond movie) last May to “identify” student who could still be in the UK and not complying with their Tier 4 visa conditions. ‘Operation Rosehip’ was launched by the at the same time to target students who should have left Britain. As a result 23,000 students had been ordered to comply with their student visas or face enforcement action. Responding to the report, the Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, said: "We are the first government to tackle the historically high levels of abuse in the student visa system. We have toughened the rules to ensure that genuine students are not taken advantage of by organisations looking to sell immigration not education. "At the same time, we have a great offer for the brightest and best international talent who want to study at our world class institutions." Labour's Shadow Immigration Minister, Chris Bryant, said this is yet another damning report about the UKBA and a scandalous situation. Bryant conveniently failed to mention that Labour introduced the points based system and were in power when the backlog of overstayers built up. Cynthia Barker of immigration advisers Concept Care Solutions has helped over-staying students who were arrested and detained pending removal orders. One Nigerian university student client, who had never been in trouble, spent 80 days detained in prison conditions, refused bail, sharing cells with convicted criminals and terror suspects. She said: “Young students from good families are intimidated by the experience of being detained and feel pressured into leaving voluntarily or are scared to seek legal advice. “Some clients leave voluntarily when they had a right to appeal or stay in the UK, for instance because they are in a relationship and have children. “Visa overstayers can avoid removal if they have an EEA partner. In this case we managed to pull him off a deportation flight ten minutes before take off because he was in a genuine relationship, and therefore a human right to a family life under article 8, with his Eastern European girlfriend.” If you have overstayed your visa or need any immigration advice or are worried about the new immigration rules or need help with Sponsorship or Tier 2, Tier 4, applying for university if your college has closed down, Visa, ILR, Settlement, Citizenship, Dependent Visa or an appeal against a UK Border Agency or British Embassy refusal, or if you have been waiting for a reply from the Home Office for longer than a year, please email immigration@londonccs.com or visit http://conceptcaresolutions.com/page.php?id=15