An undercover investigation has found middlemen using social media to help migrants obtain shoddy visas to enter the UK.
The investigation found fixers helping migrants use legal means to enter the UK (Image: Getty)
Middlemen are using social media to help potential migrants obtain visas, allowing them to enter the UK under false pretences. An undercover investigation found fixers are offering their services online for as little as £12,000, helping aspiring migrants to gain visas using sham jobs, forged certificates and contrived payroll records to deceive authorities into accepting applications.
In so doing, migrants are able to enter the UK via legitimate routes with he intention of working illegally once their visas have expired. The investigation conducted by the Daily Mail follows a highly critical report by MPs, which concluded that the skilled worker visa route has been systematically exploited. Some experts have warned that the use of entry via legal methods dwarfs small boat entries.
The Commons’s report also found that the Home Office cannot account for how many of the roughly 1.2 million people who entered the UK on these visas have remained in the country unlawfully after their permission to work ended.
The findings also indicate that unscrupulous employers and intermediaries have already adapted to evade the tougher controls announced by Sir Keir Starmer last year.
In response to the allegations, the Home Office informed the Daily Mail that it had initiated a formal investigation and warned that anyone found to be abusing the system would face the full weight of the law.
However, the investigation highlights the profitable industry being exploited by opportunistic fixers who are able to make thousands of pounds per visa.
Sites such as Facebook are being used to garner clients for visa middlemen. (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Philp called on the Home Secretary to end ‘immigration chaos’ (Image: Getty)
In one case, a woman who is herself in the UK on a student visa advertised her consultancy that provides: ‘All UK immigration services at lower cost’ with “High success approval rate.”
While speaking to an undercover reporter, the woman offered to arrange skilled worker visas for several jobs around the UK, including in restaurants, the care sector and warehouses, for a charge of between £12,000 and £19,000. She said she took a £1,000 fee.
In many such cases, there is no requirement for the person obtaining the visa to commence employment upon arrival.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Daily Mail: “This is yet another shocking example of Labour’s total loss of border control.
“These shameless and brazen criminals are making a mockery of our immigration system, and illegal immigrants are being allowed to flood into the country through the Government’s own systems. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to urgently end the immigration chaos she is presiding over.”
