A team of researchers at the University of Birmingham, led by Professor Nando Sigona, has released two new reports exposing how migrant workers experience exploitation and legal vulnerability in the UK’s food delivery and domestic work sectors.

The research is part of the Horizon Europe and UKRI-funded I-CLAIM project, which investigates the impact of legal precarity on migrant households across Europe.

The reports document the lived experiences of migrant workers—predominantly racialised and minoritised individuals—who, despite being integral to the UK’s domestic care and logistics infrastructure, are targeted by immigration enforcement while remaining largely invisible in labour policy debates and frequently excluded from rights protections…

In the domestic work sector, migrant workers—mostly women—work in private homes, where oversight is minimal and abuse is common. Many are bound to their employers through sponsorship schemes that severely limit labour mobility and bargaining power.

Others accumulate significant debt—sometimes exceeding £10,000—to secure a Certificate of Sponsorship, a requirement for their visa, only to find themselves unpaid, overworked, or dismissed with little recourse. Some domestic workers also reported being trapped in exploitative arrangements, with some cases amounting to modern slavery…