People left destitute after coming to the UK on expert employee visas solely to seek out there is not any job

“I should be in a position of helping, not receiving aid,” says one Nigerian lady.

Fraught with emotion and chatting with us anonymously within the slim hall of a meals financial institution, she is now destitute regardless of being promised a job in Britain.

Blessing, not her actual identify, informed us she arrived within the UK three months in the past. She says she paid somebody she calls an “agent” in Nigeria £10,000 to rearrange a job as a carer within the UK.

But when she bought right here she discovered there was no work for her.

Her story is a part of a wider downside, revealed in a Sky News investigation this yr exhibiting how the expert employee visa system is being abused with middlemen allegedly being paid large sums of cash to rearrange jobs within the UK as carers that don’t exist.

Many of those that cannot get work are struggling to outlive, turning to meals banks and even sleeping tough.

Blessing is now reliant on handouts.

At a meals financial institution in a Nigerian Community Centre in Greater Manchester she is given a buying bag of fundamental provides – the cabinets and crates are full of donations of bread, cereal, tinned tomatoes and acquainted African objects like palm oil and beans.

Blessing says: “I’ve all the time supplied for myself. I’m a really hard-working, diligent individual. So for me to be right here relying on folks to eat coming to the meals financial institution to get meals is not comfortable with me.

“I don’t feel happy about it.

“It makes me really feel I’m much less of an individual. I needs to be able of serving to not receiving help as a result of this isn’t who I used to be again in my nation.”

‘It makes me feel as though I’m a fool’

Blessing asked us not to contact the British company which sponsored her for fear of repercussions – but showed us her passport and other documents supporting her account of what happened.

I ask her why she didn’t make the application herself. With some irony, she says: “I might have accomplished it myself however there are such a lot of frauds on the web [in Nigeria] you do not know what’s actual.

“It makes me feel as though I’m a fool,” she says.

Blessing says she is aware of others who’ve expert employee visas solely to get right here and discover there is not any work ready for them.

She sighs: “There are so many. Dozens. I met a lot here and so many are still coming after I’ve come. There’s a big scam going on.”

‘Shameful’ subject

Mary Adekugbe, the founding father of the Nigerian Community Centre in Rochdale, says these on expert employee visas now needing help is an enormous subject that’s growing her workload – one thing she describes as “shameful”.

About 15 of the 35-40 individuals who typically come to the weekly meals financial institution have expert employee visas, she says.

“We are overwhelmed,” she says. “People are desperate. It’s so worrying.”

She paints us an image of these she has seen: “A grown-up man crying like a baby. Children crying without food because their parents can’t work to support them. No houses. No job. This is alarming.”

‘She bought every thing she had’

As we end chatting by the entrance door two girls scurry previous with their luggage of meals. It’s solely afterwards we’re informed their story – that they have been too ashamed to talk to us: one of many girls has hit all-time low and, with nowhere else to go, lives on the bus.

Community volunteer Jones Adekube says: “Last week we gave her bread and tuna because that’s what she can eat easily without cooking or warming.”

Now homeless, the girl on the bus is one more one that paid an agent in Nigeria to rearrange care work within the UK, we’re informed.

Mr Adekube says: “She did some work when she came in. Initially they gave her one shift a week which is 12 hours a week. As time went on there were no shifts.

“According to what she confirmed us she was supplied a full-time job as a carer. And now she’s sleeping on the bus.”

He adds: “She’s in a foul means. She cannot return residence. She has nothing at residence. She bought every thing she had.”

‘It’s not been easy’

Another couple – we’re calling them Allen and Joyce – have come to the UK with their young son.

We’ve changed their names but they showed us documents which prove they’re in the UK on skilled worker visas.

Joyce says she was additionally promised work as a carer and Allen was capable of accompany her as a result of he’s classed as her dependent.

Allen says: “It’s not been easy. I had to sell my car; sell my property, get a loan and took a lot of risk to raise the money.”

Under the phrases of the expert employee visa they cannot work in another job class and are restricted to twenty hours every week underneath one other employer within the care sector.

Often, residence care suppliers require entry to a automobile, and completely switching sponsors is sort of unattainable.

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Joyce says: “It’s very difficult because most jobs you want to get – they will first of all tell you that you’ve got a sponsor from somewhere else. So maybe you should go back to that place to get your job. That’s what they always say.”

“We are begging the [UK] government if they can look into it, even if it is not skilled work, if they can give us another sponsorship or any other work, we are ready to do. For our survival.”

Over 170,000 expert employee visas issued in a yr

In the 12 months to March 2023, 170,993 expert employee visas have been awarded. In the well being and care sector alone, grants have elevated over two and a half occasions and characterize over half of all work visas issued in the identical interval.

On the job with the bottom entry requirement – care staff and residential carers – 40,416 folks have been awarded visas within the yr to March 2023.

In totally different components of the nation and throughout totally different communities we’re listening to the identical factor.

In Bradford in West Yorkshire, folks within the city’s established Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities communicate of their considerations about folks struggling to eat and put a roof over their heads having come to the UK to work.

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‘They are determined’

Moin Uddin Khan, who owns the big Al-Falah Supermarket in Bradford, says individuals are all the time coming in asking for work – predominantly individuals who have come on expert employee visas.

Mr Khan says: “They are very desperate. Some people they come begging me because I don’t have any food to eat – and you get this every day.”

The store supervisor, Anhar Ali, says some candidates by no means had any intention of working as carers within the first place – the job they have been sponsored for as a situation of coming into the nation.

He says: “Some of them are told before they arrive, ‘you won’t have a job, you’re only arriving here’. And they do pay a lot of money. It’s just a way to get to the UK.”

Some of the people who find themselves abusing the route to succeed in Britain, Mr Ali says, come into the store with out even with the ability to communicate English – a fundamental requirement to acquire a talented employee visa.

In the again workplace, he reveals us the newest pile of CVs from folks attempting to get a job. He has to test every one with the Home Office’s on-line immigration standing software – in any other case the shop might be fined 1000’s of kilos.

Nearly half the rejected CVs, Mr Ali claims, come from folks just lately arriving on expert employee visas as carers however who can not legally do store work.

Unrealistic view of life in Britain

And there’s a pressure, Mr Ali admits, on the neighborhood over these keen to do something for even beneath minimal wage.

“If they’re going to businesses and offering themselves for less money some businesses may want to go down that route and employ them and sack the local employees,” he says.

Mobeen Hussain, who based a neighborhood hub and cafe in Queensbury, on the outskirts of Bradford, says some folks have an unrealistic view of how straightforward it is going to be to construct a brand new life in Britain.

He says: “I think a lot of people feel that they’re going to come over here, they’re going to start a new life, it’s going to be a life where they’re going to make lots of money, they’re going to be living a lavish lifestyle. But it’s nothing like that.”

Mr Hussain mentioned the federal government checks are weak and needs to be tightened.

A Home Office spokesperson mentioned: “Abuse of our immigration system will not be tolerated and we have robust measures in place to ensure compliance.

“We will all the time take decisive motion if employers break the foundations, together with by revoking sponsor licences when essential.”

Reporting by Lisa Holland and Nick Stylianou
Production by Samuel Osborne