The Government have announced that bosses who employ illegal immigrants are now to face fines of £10,000: www.dailymail.co.uk
This is fine for those who willingly employee illegals but for the rest of us we need a system like that used by the US Department of Homeland Security and US employers where the employment status of an applicant can be checked via a computer before they are employed.
At present Government Departments hide behind the Data Protection Act so even if an employer wants to verify that the employee is who he says he is the employer is told that they cannot give out any information.
If an employer does discover that they have unwittingly employed an illegal and they try and report it to the The Border and Immigration Agency the automated switchboard at Croydon gives no facility to speak to anyone, the police tell you to speak to the Immigration Services.
If you do manage to speak to anyone, you just get threats of fines for employing the illegal immigrant in the first place.
Iain Young
