Employer Checks of Immigration Status and Employment Law

This chapter argues that there are unresolved tensions between employers’ duties under employment law and their obligations to check the right to work of prospective and current workers under immigration law. It examines the UK’s comparatively late introduction and development of employer checks on migration status. At the recruitment stage, it highlights a lack of clarity regarding the need to respect a right to work granted by EU law, and the freedom for an employer to prefer workers with a particular migration status. During the employment relationship, the chapter identifies legal uncertainties concerning employer selectivity in checks of current permission to work, and in relation to the payment of employees who are suspended. Upon dismissal, it shows that there are questions concerning the extent of the procedural and substantive protection available to those lacking a right to work.