The register of sponsors, those organisations permitted by the Home Office to sponsor migrants, has increased in size fourfold since 2020, writes the Research Director for the Centre for Migration Control
Reports the Iranian regime is using the small boats crisis to send its own operatives into Britain have focused minds as to the scale of the national security threat that uncontrolled migration poses to this country.
But it is not just the illegal migration crisis that presents serious challenges. The legal migration system is wholly inadequate at managing risks and arguably further endangers the British public with its ineptitude.
There is no viable or operational means for the Home Office to conduct the appropriate compliance and background checks on these businesses, let alone those individuals they are sponsoring to come to Britain.
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of work and dependant visas have been awarded to individuals who were not even required to produce a criminal record certificate.
This is a huge loophole, and a security problem compounded by the fact we simply do not have access to the requisite databases to provide comprehensive background checks on migrants, especially those from outside Europe and nations with dysfunctional administrative systems.
Even more concerning, as revealed by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) in May, is that groups supportive of the Iranian regime, or overtly linked to it, have been given the right by the Home Office to bring migrants to Britain.
This includes the Islamic Centre of England (ICE), described by a former Iranian government official as a “kind of a headquarters that supervises all the network” of Iranian organisations in Britain.
Indeed, it is reported that the former director of ICE was directly appointed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and following his death earlier this year, the group held an event “to mourn the martyrdom” of Khamenei.
At a time of global instability, with a host of bad faith actors wanting to cause this country harm, it is an act of suicidal liberalism that the UK allows groups such as ICE to operate here at all, let alone bring in further adherents of its worldview. Yet research by the CMC shows that ICE has indeed previously awarded sponsorships under the skilled worker and religious worker visa routes.
This is an organisation, that in the last few years, has hosted an event eulogising the IRGC military commander, Qasem Soleimani, and a “community bazaar” selling items indicating support for Hezbollah - both groups proscribed by the Home Office.
Also on the register is the Mosque and Islamic Centre of Brent, a religious institution which sponsored an undisclosed number of migrants in 2023, and was sanctioned by the Charity Commission in July 2025 for producing content considered supportive of Hamas. Earlier this year, it also hosted a preacher who described the Islamist tyrant Khamenei as someone who “stood up for the truth and for the oppressed ones”.
Successive policy failures have meant numerous other groups that either overtly hate Britain or perpetuate a worldview anathema to our own, are currently on the register. It is a monolith that has exploded out of all control. Its continued existence exposes our society to unjustifiable threats, and a major audit is now desperately required.
