> I do wonder how having a postal address is related to being a legal or illegal immigrant. After all - if your friend has a fixed address, they can share it with you, so you can receive mail, can they not?
It's generally not so much about receiving mail as having an address which you are deemed resident at for official purposes. That's a little bit different to having somewhere to pick letters up. There's always Poste Restante for picking letters up, so if it was merely post that was the problem that would be the solution.
If you are going to provide an address for residency, you will be treated as providing accommodation. If you're on any kind of benefit, this will be used against you when your friend gets their first pay packet, because address is mandatory for payroll and is shared with the benefits agencies and immigration enforcement electronically. Good luck disputing the home office claim that the person you're providing accommodation to isn't a UK citizen.
In the UK there is a legal requirement on employers to check right to work of employees. This requires paperwork that the applicant is unlikely to have if homeless. Getting duplicates of the paperwork takes money and time.
You need either a passport or evidence of national insurance number from a previous job or benefits claim in addition to a birth certificate to prove eligibility to work if you are a UK citizen.
> Regardless if you are an illegal immigrant or not.
In creating a system hostile to illegal immigrants the past few UK governments have made a hostile environment for the bottom quartile of earners in the UK to gain work. These checks exist for no other reason. [0]
What we often see in newspaper articles is the first reason somebody can't get a job. It's very rare to see the full list of obstacles. It's like a compiler that fails at the first error when there are tens of other errors waiting after that first one is fixed.
It's generally not so much about receiving mail as having an address which you are deemed resident at for official purposes. That's a little bit different to having somewhere to pick letters up. There's always Poste Restante for picking letters up, so if it was merely post that was the problem that would be the solution.
If you are going to provide an address for residency, you will be treated as providing accommodation. If you're on any kind of benefit, this will be used against you when your friend gets their first pay packet, because address is mandatory for payroll and is shared with the benefits agencies and immigration enforcement electronically. Good luck disputing the home office claim that the person you're providing accommodation to isn't a UK citizen.
In the UK there is a legal requirement on employers to check right to work of employees. This requires paperwork that the applicant is unlikely to have if homeless. Getting duplicates of the paperwork takes money and time.
You need either a passport or evidence of national insurance number from a previous job or benefits claim in addition to a birth certificate to prove eligibility to work if you are a UK citizen.
> Regardless if you are an illegal immigrant or not.
In creating a system hostile to illegal immigrants the past few UK governments have made a hostile environment for the bottom quartile of earners in the UK to gain work. These checks exist for no other reason. [0]
What we often see in newspaper articles is the first reason somebody can't get a job. It's very rare to see the full list of obstacles. It's like a compiler that fails at the first error when there are tens of other errors waiting after that first one is fixed.
[0] Even the guide to right-to-work documents is published by Immigration Enforcement and UK Visas and Immigration. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/acceptable-right-...