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London Burger Chain Owners Tricked Workers Into Meeting Where Immigration Agents Arrested Them

CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

Nearly three dozen immigrant workers at a London-based burger chain were arrested and deported after being tricked by their bosses to gather for meetings in the kitchen in early July, according to The Guardian.

One worker had been told that the meeting would be on the topic of properly cooking hamburgers, but he found it strange to be called in because he had already taken that training session. Another kitchen staff member reported to the meeting at 9:30 a.m. only to be arrested by immigration officials.

“[Immigration agents] said, ‘nobody move, we’re immigration, stay where you are’, and then they started calling out names and took the people they were looking for aside,” the worker told the publication.

They were destroying everything I have done. I worked hard, I paid taxes and Byron did this to us. It is immoral.

“There were 20 of us there, all from Byron. At the beginning, I couldn’t believe what was happening. But then, when I realised they were going to deport us, I felt so bad,” the chef told The Guardian. “They were destroying everything I have done. I worked hard, I paid taxes and Byron did this to us. It is immoral. They were happy to employ me for years doing really hard work that no British person would do.”

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The Home Office — which is the U.K. government department that handles immigration affairs — confirmed that 35 workers from Albania, Brazil, Nepal, and Egypt were detained during an immigration raid at various Byron Hamburgers locations and later deported. The agency denied reports that workers were deceived into attending a fake meeting.

“We can confirm that several of Byron’s London restaurants were visited by representatives of the Home Office,” a Byron’s Burger statement read. “These visits resulted in the removal of members of staff who are suspected by the Home Office of not having the right to work in the UK, and of possessing fraudulent personal and right to work documentation that is in breach of immigration and employment regulation.”

The burger chain will likely not incur heavy fines for hiring employees without proper documentation since the government agency determined that the chain had conducted the proper “right to work” background checks on the employees before they were hired.

Immigrant advocates have already called for a boycott of the burger chain, noting that they were angry at the way immigration enforcement had been conducted.

The swift action taken with immigration raids coupled with the alleged deception may seem unusual, but across the Atlantic Ocean, U.S. federal law enforcement agents have been known to lure immigrants into deportation proceedings. In February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents reportedly lied to get an immigrant to come out of a church on the pretense that his cousin was injured in an accident. And agents have picked up teenagers on their way to and from schools in North Carolina and Georgia.

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Churches, schools, and hospitals are considered “sensitive locations” where immigration agents should take greater care to avoid arresting and detaining immigrants because it may otherwise deter attendance at these sites.