Image description: A billboard advertizing the opening of a Byron, photoshopped to include an Immigration Removal van. It reads: “Byron / Exploitation / Immigration Raids / UKBA Collusion / Coming soon”

On July 4, Byron Burgers called in undocumented workers from 15 UK stores for a “training session” which was actually a UKBA raid. Home Office officials detained and deported “dozens” of people. It’s being widely ignored in English media; that link is to Spanish media. Most of the people detained and deported were Latinx.
Byron is a microcosm of Theresa May’s “hostile environment”: a UK chain company can exploit undocumented migrant workers as long as they rat them out to the Home Office if they’re caught illegally employing them. Byron benefits from cheap labor and precarious workers; the UKBA benefits from companies like Byron ratting out their employees — everyone wins, except the workers, who are apparently disposable. Employers are becoming border guards, along with landlords, neighbors, teachers, and universities. It’s unacceptable.
There will be a protest at Byron’s Holborn branch in London on Monday evening, August 1 in solidarity with migrant workers, both documented and undocumented.