When your sponsor license receives a suspension in a State, then they express worries about your duties as a sponsor and possible unauthorized immigration practices. Read this section to learn the right actions during a license suspension and understand typical suspension causes together with response methods against possible license revocation.

What Does a Sponsor License Suspension Mean?

A license suspension prohibits you from starting new CoS processes and makes all active CoS invalid for non-European migrants. Your organization remains unable to create new CoS to support migrant worker entry in all available visa routes that match your license. Your designated Authorizing Officer along with the selected Key Contact and new Level 1 Users cannot be modified in the system. The suspension process requires your organization to lose its position on the public sponsor registration system. All current migrant workers who work for you can maintain their employment as entry clearance recipients while your license remains active or until they finish traveling to your employ. You have to maintain your sponsorship duties by keeping all necessary records and performing regular reports despite the suspension duration.

You need to renew your license even though its expiration date approaches because sponsorship of foreign workers will depend on this renewal status.

Your Sponsorship Duties

While being a sponsor requires you to perform these main obligations:

1. Sponsoring migrant workers: All job candidates must prove their ability to meet professional requirements regarding qualifications and accreditations needed to conduct their work tasks. Businesses must give CoS permissions to workers only for roles that match both the skill requirements and visa criteria and minimum salary constraints.
2. Conducting right to work checks: You must verify right to work for every worker at the time of their employment no matter their nationality. The organization needs to perform follow-up right to work checks for workers whose staying permission is temporary along with keeping precise records that demonstrate compliance.
3. Monitoring and reporting: You are required to keep documentation regarding worker immigration information coupled with their contact information and attendance records. You must advise to the State’ business transformations including mergers or address changes and convey employment or absence-related concerns.

How to Respond to a Suspension

Depending upon the reasons for suspension in the suspension notice issued to you by the State, how you respond to a sponsorship license suspension will vary.

Here are key steps to take:

• Read the suspension notice well; know the reasons for suspension and the details you need to bring into submission. The 20 working days allowed, should it be required to reply to you, you will have.
• Submit any missing documentation: If the suspension is due to lack of information or documents, be sure to provide them as fast as you can and make a good justification of any delay. If the reason for suspension is failure to meet sponsorship duties (e.g. failing to do right to work checks or reporting absences) then you should do this immediately and provide evidence that this is now rectified in your response.
• Hire an immigration specialist: It may pay to get expert legal advice from an immigration specialist — an experienced immigration lawyer who can help you develop the kind of robust response and respond to each issue raised in the suspension notice that will give the greatest hope of lifting the suspension.