“New estimate ‘shows scale of exploitation on Wild West care visa route’”

…An estimate suggesting thousands of care workers have come to the UK in recent years under sponsors whose licences were later revoked is said to demonstrate the exploitation in a “Wild West” system.

The Home Office said more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector had been revoked between July 2022 and December 2024 in a crackdown on abuse and exploitation.

More than 39,000 workers were associated with those sponsors since October 2020, the department said.

Migrant help charity the Work Rights Centre said the figures are a “shocking revelation of the scale of fraud and exploitation under the sponsorship system”.

At least a quarter of the care workers estimated to have been affected either found alternative employment in the care sector or were not working for the sponsor at the time, the Home Office said.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said the care worker visa route was, in 2023, “pretty much the Wild West”…

…If the sponsor loses their licence the certificate is cancelled and the person has limited time to find a new one or leave the UK…