More than a hundred migrants and their families face being in Britain illegally after the company which sponsored them to come to work in the UK was stripped of its ability to endorse their visas.
Foreigners employed by care agency Renaissance Personnel in Brighton have just weeks to find a new sponsor or return home before their legal right to be in the country runs out.
The Home Office revoked the licence of Renaissance to bring in migrant workers over concerns about whether vacancies were genuine and whether staff were being paid.
Muhammad, 45, brought his wife and four children to Britain from Pakistan in April 2023 after being promised work as one of Renaissance Personnel’s care assistants.
Renting a small terraced house, his children attend local schools and play in the property’s tiny concrete-walled garden.
Muhammad tells Sky News: “They were having the dream that, okay, we will move to the UK. We will have great education. Now they are worried.”
He says they ask him: “‘Baba, what we will do?’ Always we will be going here, there and now we don’t have anywhere.”
Muhammad claims he paid £19,000 to a recruitment agent before being sent a certificate of sponsorship and job offer from Renaissance Personnel.
Renaissance Personnel maintains that the company has no connection to any foreign recruitment agents.
Soon after arriving in the UK, Muhammad realised there was no work for him.
His certificate of sponsorship, approved by the Home Office, states the urgent need for care workers at the company, with “1500 hours uncovered per week”.
Muhammad should have been guaranteed 39 hours of work per week, but says there was no contracted work available.
He begged the boss of Renaissance Personnel, Dennis Mawadzi, for an admin job and began working in the company’s Brighton office.
Never been inspected
Renaissance Personnel also operates in London and Buckinghamshire.
The Brighton arm was initially registered with the Care Quality Commission in January 2021 but has never been inspected.
Muhammad claims more than 150 foreign workers have been recruited for that site alone but says there’s only enough work for around 15 staff – a mixture of private referrals and local authority clients.
Brighton and Hove Council confirmed to Sky News that it had used Renaissance Personnel to deliver care to people in their homes, but that its contract involved only a small number of people.
A spokesperson said: “We currently have six clients placed with Renaissance Personnel and it informed us directly of both the recent investigation and the subsequent notice it has had its overseas sponsor licence revoked.
“When an overseas sponsor licence is suspended or revoked our practice is to pause all new referrals to that provider while we review any potential risks.”
Fajar, 20, arrived from Pakistan in June 2023 with a certificate of sponsorship from Renaissance and an offer of full-time care work.
He also claims he hasn’t been given the shifts he thought he’d secured: “I only worked for a few days, like three or four days in June. In last June. And after that I have not got any work.”
He says his parents gave £20,000 to an agent before he was sent his documents and he now needs to earn money in order to pay them back.
Fajar and Muhammad say they haven’t been paid by Renaissance Personnel for months – and they are not alone.
Sky News understands Mr Mawadzi hosted a virtual meeting for dozens of employees during which he explained the loss of sponsorship licence.
Muhammad, who was on the call, says workers were upset and angry, questioning what they should do and demanding to be paid.
There are more than 116,000 companies listed as “approved sponsors”, able to recruit people to come to the UK.
If a sponsor licence is no longer valid, the Home Office will notify employees giving them 60 days to find a new sponsor or return home.
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Workers have ‘disappeared’
Fajar and Muhammad told Sky News that they have not been contacted by the Home Office about their status or any investigation into Renaissance Personnel.
Muhammad says the company has already lost contact with many of the people it sponsored to come here.
He says they have “disappeared” and could be working on the black market: “They may be doing cash jobs or maybe they are involved [in] some other activities here.”
Lawyers acting on behalf of Mr Mawadzi told Sky News they will be challenging the decision to revoke its sponsorship licence, adding: “Our client denies all allegations and refutes the claim that they have hired more foreign staff than they had hours to allocate.
“It is essential to comprehend the unique nature of the domiciliary care service industry, where hours are inherently variable and not guaranteed.
“At the time of recruitment, our client employed migrant workers to address a significant number of unfilled hours in Brighton and Hove…The exact number of foreign staff currently employed, and the guaranteed hours cannot be precisely determined due to the non-static and demand-driven nature of the industry.”
The lawyers add that a “delay in payment” to staff occurred because “our client business accounts and commercial finance facilities were closed without sufficient notice” adding “all staff will be fully paid”.
They say: “We understand the concern raised regarding allegations that staff members paid agents for certificates of sponsorship through Renaissance… our company strictly adheres to transparent recruitment processes…Upon becoming aware of such incidents, Renaissance promptly involves relevant authorities.”
They add: “We provide comprehensive safety and sensitivity training to all employees” and say the allegation of losing contact with workers is untrue, telling Sky News that workers “who do not report back to the company are straight away reported to the Home Office within 10 days… apart from workers who have been reported to the Home Office, the sponsor is in contact with the remaining workers.”
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‘Crack down on abuse within the sector’
The previous government did not provide Sky News with an answer as to why Renaissance Personnel had been able to bring in so many foreign workers to the UK before its sponsorship licence was revoked.
Following the general election, a spokesperson for the Home Office told Sky News “exploitation of migrant care workers is completely unacceptable. Where exploitation does occur, we will take robust action.
“Care providers acting as sponsors for migrants in England must be registered with the industry regulator, the Care Quality Commission, to crack down on abuse within the sector.
“We are working hard across government and with the sector to ensure high standards across the immigration system, and to support care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has had their licence removed.”
Renaissance Personnel is not the only care agency under investigation for allegedly sponsoring foreign workers to come to the UK for jobs that do not exist.
The challenge for the new home secretary will be how to deal with people who find themselves in the country illegally because of a crackdown on who can sponsor workers to come into Britain.