The men were arrested when immigration officers swooped on Stateside Foods, at the Wingates Industrial Estate, Westhoughton, Bolton, last month.
They were using false ID and National Insurance cards, forged or stolen passports, fraudulent Social Security cards and forged Home Office letters, Bolton Crown Court was told.
All seven admitted obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and using false documents.
Noel Chivavaya, 27, from Zimbabwe, Blaise Nkieekobo, 30, from Ethiopia, and Guylan Akela, 25, Kinola Kikeni, 34, Bonnet Mbombila, 34, Muledi Kingombe, 29, and Matoumona Gisunda, 38, all from the Congo, were each jailed for four months.
The judge ordered each man to serve only half their sentences, with the other two months suspended.
All seven, who have exhausted their rights of asylum appeal, are now likely to be deported within "months".
It was told that they had fled their native countries in the face of persecution and extreme violence.
Judge Warnock said: "The desperate circumstances that you found yourself in led you into this dishonesty. I know and accept that each of you desperately wanted to stay in this country. I also accept that you resorted to dishonesty because of your desperate plight.
"But using a false document to gain employment strikes at the very fabric of our society."
The court was told man of the men had sought education after arriving in Britain and none had any previous convictions.
A total of 21 suspected illegal workers were arrested in the Westhoughton raid, code named Operation Hayden.
Many were released after questioning, without charge.
The Home Office said Stateside Food had worked closely with the Immigration Service.
It knew the swoop was planned and would not face further action or prosecution.
It is understood that immigration officers received a tip-off from someone connected with the company earlier this year.
A 25-year-old woman also arrested in the operation was jailed for four months by magistrates Court last month after pleading guilty to a similar charge. Tweet
Comments
Login or Register to comment
It is outrageous that the asylum seekers have been jailed for working. Do the Home Office expect people to live in Queen's Park, and beg for their food? Surely it is a breach of human rights for the Home Office to make people destitute and homeless. And to jail them for working is beyond words!
The Home Office have suspended removals to Zimbabwe and the Congo because it is too dangerous. So why was asylum refused in the first place?
I work with about 100 of the 500 destitute asylum seekers here in Greater Manchester. They have been refused asylum, often without good reason, they are thrown out of their accommodation, and have to rely on food handouts and a fiver from the Red Cross each week.
They are, like all asylum seekers, not allowed to work. So what choice do they have? Beg, borrow, or steal? Or work illegally, like thousands of the resident British do (whilst claiming benefits at the same time). I wonder how many of THEM would get 4 months in jail if they were caught?
Isn't it a far worse crime to cheat when you CAN work legally, and already have benefit money to buy food? What does our government expect these people to do? Their only 'crime' is in thinking that they would get a fair deal in this country after they fled for their lives from war, persecution and torture.
Many are highly educated, intelligent people with skills we need in this country - and even if they weren't, what sort of society is it that deliberately makes them homeless and penniless, then punishes them for working for a living? No wonder David Blunkett was thinking of pulling out of the Geneva convention. His policies fall far short of the basic human rights that all human beings deserve.
i agree with the two comments here...i am glad to see someone sticking up for the asylum seekers for once.
People treat them as if they just came here to rob britain of its benefits...of course they are called asylum seekers cos they need rufuge from danger....
i know loads of asylum seekers and they are wonderful people..they have to work illegaly cos the goverment does not give housing or benefits to them all...
one of my friends was homeless with not money or food so he had to find illegal work he had no choice if he was to live...he would happily pay tax and forgo benefits if he had the chance.
The goverment is forcing people like him into these positions....
I would like to know what tony blair or the so called virtuose david blunkett would do if they were not allowed to work and had no home and had to feed themselves and there family...while constantly being told that they were scrounging and to go home....they would not survive one minute....
i would like to know what makes the british public supposedly hard working honest tax payers...so annoyed that someone needs help....its not as if these asylum seekers have been lying on their ass all day long like many people i know...and recieving benefits even though the are fit to work......
the truth is even after people blattering on about integration and so on...even those who try to integrate...and lose all their former cultural and religious traditions...still get racist remarks.... they will never be accepted by many because of their colour or accent ..the truth is that there are many racist here in manchester..many...and they hid this under supposed concerns about intergration etc...
this really upsets me i pray all the time that my asylum seeker friends are not beaten up....
in the past many have been here in manchester and their little money has been stolen....
i have seen them suffer terrible verbal abuse...
in oldham last year my friend had two weeks worth of work money stolen off him...this guy came up to him on huddersfield road and thretened to stab him if he didnt hand it over.....he is too scared to tell the police cos he was working illegaly...
another one i know got stabbed in cheetham hill...the police came to see him and he lied saying that it was a kitchen accident...he knows that nothing could be done about it.....there are loads of cases like this but no one hears about them......u only hear the bad stories about them.......never do u see positive ones...
like u hear about that counciller goingback to pakistan...but no one ever casts a bad word against british people...like a while ago a asylum seeker was murded in wales.......now if it was the other way round the media would have a field day.........
as u can see this is a topic that really gets to me....not just about illegal work but also general attitudes to these innocent people...
about time too.. building sites are full of illegal workers in the south offering the main contractors a cheap source of labour through sub contractors who know exactly what they are doing and just ignore the employees illegal status. This in turn makes it hard for genuine certificated tradesman to gain the going rate on sites keeping the wages down and costing the british builder his job because the illegal is almost half price. When is someone going to print a direct number to contact the authorities on this in our national press so we can so things can begin to get back to normal.
These people SHOULDN'T be here and they are taking the mick out of the UK's generosity by doing so and working illegally.