James Brokenshire says businesses employing workers illegally will be hit with "the full force of government machinery"
Immigration Minister James Brokenshire has told The Times that the government intends to crackdown on companies employing immigrants working illegally.
Image credit: UK GovernmentAccording to BBC News, immigration officers are to carry out raids on cleaning firms, building sites and care homes.
Brokenshire said businesses employing workers who do not have permission to work in the UK will be hit with "the full force of government machinery".
BBC News quoted Brokenshire as saying: "Experience tells us that employers who are prepared to cheat employment rules are also likely to breach health and safety rules and pay insufficient tax."
"That's why our new approach will be to use the full force of government machinery to hit them from all angles and take away the unfair advantage enjoyed by those who employ illegal migrants."
The Guardian says that Brokenshire's announcement appears to be part of a wider heightening of rhetoric against illegal immigration given the crisis at Calais, and comes in the wake of Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond's controversial recent comments that Europe faced "marauding" migrants.
Hammond told the BBC that Europe will not be able to preserve its living standards if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa.
He said that the problem was being exacerbated by European Union laws and it had to ultimately be resolved by being able to return those who are not entitled to claim asylum back to their countries of origin.
According to BBC News, Steve Symonds of Amnesty International UK described Mr Hammond's "mean-spirited response" as "shameful".
Meanwhile, Isabel Hardman asked in the Spectator today if we could have a "crackdown on crackdowns?"
"Today we have yet another 'crackdown' on employers who give jobs to illegal immigrants … Of course, crackdowns don't really make much difference to the crisis in Calais, but they do give the impression that ministers are Doing Something, and this in itself is very important in a Summer Crisis," Hardman wrote.
Hardman also noted that "Britain is lagging far behind many other European countries on recognising asylum seekers, with the latest Eurostat figures showing that it recognised 34 per cent of claims in the first quarter of this year, well below the rates of many other northern European countries such as Sweden (73 per cent), Denmark (88 per cent), the Netherlands (71 per cent) and Germany (44 per cent)."