People Are Boycotting Byron Amid Claims It Helped The Government Deport Its Staff

Burger chain Byron is facing protests and a customer boycott after being accused of helping the Home Office to deport some employees who were working in its London restaurants.

An anonymous Byron employee told Spanish newspaper El Ibérico that staff members were asked to attend what they were told was a training session on 4 July.

The employee said that five minutes into the session, some members of staff were asked to go into a separate room where immigration officials were waiting.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Byron confirmed that several of its restaurants had been visited by Home Office representatives:

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 documentation that is in breach of immigration and asylum regulation.

The company later tweeted out a statement:

According to the anonymous employee, the staff members who were deported were mainly of Latin American descent and some had worked for Byron for four years. He alleged that 50 workers were deported and about 150 were currently in hiding.

He said 15 Byron restaurants were visited by the UK Border Agency, and that it was something he had never seen in his four years of working for the chain.

The day after the raid, he said, a member of staff from Byron's HR department visited the restaurant and began to hire new staff to replace those who had been deported.

On 12 July, amendments to the Immigration Act came into force. The penalty fine has been doubled from £10,000 to £20,000 and the maximum prison sentence has been increased from two to five years.

The UK visas and immigration department can now also shut down a business for up to 48 hours unless it can prove that the right checks were made before hiring.

Petros Elia, general secretary of the trade union United Voices of the World, told BuzzFeed News it was not known whether the deported workers would be receiving the wages they had worked for, and said the union was standing behind the Byron employees.

Amelia Womack, the deputy leader of the Green party, described the reports as "deeply shocking" and said she would attend a protest planned for Monday.

"If these accusations are true than the bosses at Byron should be utterly ashamed of themselves for turning people’s lives upside down," she said. "Nobody wants people to be working illegally in the UK – not least because they face exploitation from unscrupulous bosses – but this alleged act of underhand trickery from Byron is unforgivable. Those people who are settled and working in the UK should be able to apply for residency so as to continue contributing to our society and our economy.”