THE British Home Secretary, Theresa May, has promised to look into the cases of people entitled to live in Britain who have been wrongly told to leave the country by a private company acting on behalf of the UK Border Agency (UKBA).

Capita, which won a £40 million ($61.3 million) UKBA contract to trace 174,000 migrants living illegally in Britain from September, has been sending text messages and emails to them saying they are required to leave the country.

But immigration lawyers say those who have received texts from Capita in recent weeks include a woman who held a valid British passport and a man with a valid visa who had invested £1 million in a business in Britain.

The text message tells recipients to contact UKBA at once.

Lawyers say the texts were sent out over the Christmas period and those who were wrongly informed they needed to leave were extremely distressed.