FIVE illegal workers have been arrested at two Warrington town centre nail bars after Immigration Enforcement officers targeted the town over the weekend.
Supported by officers from the Foreign National Offender Team at Cheshire Police, three men were arrested at Q Nails and Beauty on Sankey Street and two individuals, one man and one woman, were arrested at Lucy Nails on Horsemarket Street on Saturday (13 September).
All five were of Vietnamese nationality and arrested for having no permission to work in the UK.
Both premises were issued with Civil Penalty Referral Notices, meaning the employer could face substantial fines if found to have employed illegal workers and failed to conduct relevant pre-employment checks. This includes a potential fine of up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach and up to £60,000 for repeat offending.
Q Nails on Sankey Street
The enforcement action forms part of the government’s zero-tolerance approach to illegal working under its Plan for Change and follows a 50% surge in visits and arrests since July last year.
Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Alex Norris, said: “Illegal working undercuts honest local businesses, undermines our immigration system and often leads to the exploitation of vulnerable people. Under our Plan for Change, this will not be tolerated.
“That’s why Immigration Enforcement officers have significantly ramped up their enforcement activity to crack down on this criminality, including through thousands arrests in recent months alone, to make sure there is no hiding place from the law. We will continue to go further and faster to ensure those abusing our immigration rules face the full consequences.”
HM Inspector, of the Home Office’s Immigration Enforcement Team, Dale Hallett, said:“I’d like to thank my officers and Cheshire Police colleagues for their support on this operation. I hope this sends a clear message that we are continuing to tackle illegal working in our communities and are coming after unscrupulous employers who think they can get away with breaking the immigration rules.”
Inspector Helen Hayes, of the Foreign National Offender team at Cheshire Police, said:
“We know that many extremely vulnerable people come to the UK in the pursuit of a better life, however, we have seen in several instances in Cheshire alone that these people are instead being criminally exploited.
“The criminal exploitation of vulnerable people is an extremely serious matter, and we continually work with our partner organisations, such as the Home Office and Immigration Enforcement, in tackling the issue within our communities and providing any victims we identify with the correct support they need.
“Moving forward, I’d strongly urge anyone within the local community to come forward with any information or suspicions they have and report them to us, so, together, we can help protect the vulnerable and punish the perpetrators.”
Ramping up illegal working enforcement activity forms a key part of the Home Office’s drive to restore order to the immigration system under the government’s Plan for Change.
In many cases, individuals travelling to the UK illegally are sold a lie by smuggling gangs that they will be able to live and work freely in the UK, when in reality they will often face squalid living conditions, minimal pay and inhumane working hours, with the threat of arrest and removal if they are caught working illegally.
The Home Office announced last month that Immigration Enforcement teams will receive a £5 million funding boost to ramp up illegal working intensification activity even further.
The move forms a key part of a whole system approach to tackling illegal migration from every angle. Since July last year (to 28 June 2025), officers have carried out over 10,000 enforcement visits and made more than 7,000 illegal working arrests across the UK – an increase of around 50% compared to the same time the previous year. A total of 2,105 civil penalty notices have also been issued to unscrupulous businesses hiring illegal workers.
Lucy’s nails on Horsemarket Street
