Kent divided over Byron as protests continue over its ‘immigration’ stance

In July, early morning immigration raids took place across London at a number of fake training events organised by Byron, leading to the arrest of 35 of the company’s employees.

People in Kent remained divided over eating at burger chain Byron following a country-wide backlash over the revelation that the firm worked with the Home Office to arrest dozens of its own workers.

A Byron spokeswoman said: ‘Byron was unaware that any of our workers were in possession of counterfeit documentation until the Home Office brought it to our attention.

But now Byron faces widespread calls for a boycott of it’s restaurants amid accusations of exploitation and foul play by industry players and consumers.

London Black Revolutionaries and Malcom X Movement, the groups behind Friday’s original insect protests at Byron’s Holborn and Shaftesbury Avenue branches, said in an official statement: “We must defend these people and their families from such dehumanized treatment”. These claims have been dismissed by the Home Office.

Despite the calls to boycott Byron, which has 56 outlets across the United Kingdom, some people have taken to social media to support the burger chain for helping to uphold immigration law.

“But then, when I realised they were going to deport us, I felt so bad”, one man, a former chef at one of the restaurants, told the Guardian under the condition of anonymity.

“Many thousands of live cockroaches, locusts and crickets [have been released] into these restaurants”, a statement published by the London Black Revs and Malcolm X Movement, two social revolutionary groups, on Facebook said.

“8000 locust, 2000 crickets, 4000 cockroaches. They need to clean up their act”.

The burger chain will likely not incur heavy fines for hiring employees without proper documentation since the government agency determined that the chain had conducted the proper “right to work” background checks on the employees before they were hired.

It added that it has always cooperated fully with the Home Office’s requests and processes, as is its legal obligation.

Police officers lined the front of the Holborn branch in central London as the crowd hit out at the restaurant chain’s handling of the incident.