UK immigration enforcement teams made over 600 arrests in January, a 73 percent increase from the period a year ago, as part of the new Labour government’s plan to tackle undocumented migration and people smuggling gangs, officials said Monday.
The 609 arrests, compared to 352 in January 2024, were made at over 800 premises including nail bars, restaurants, car washes and convenience stores, a government statement said.
On taking office last year Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer immediately scrapped his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deter undocumented migration to the UK by deporting new arrivals to Rwanda.
Instead he pledged to “smash the gangs” to bring the numbers down.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said employers had for too long been able to “exploit illegal migrants and too many people have been able to arrive and work illegally with no enforcement action ever taken”.
“We are boosting enforcement to record levels alongside tough new legislation to smash the criminal gangs that undermine our border security and who have been getting away with it for far too long,” she said.
Undocumented migration by people who try to take small, perilously unsafe boats across the English Channel from France to England was a major issue during last July’s general election, which brought Starmer’s Labour Party to power.
The government said Monday that nearly 19,000 failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other immigration offenders had been expelled from Britain since the election “following a major escalation in immigration enforcement by the Home Office”.
The ministry said it was the highest number of such returns since 2018.
Regular migration, currently running at historically high levels and estimated at 728,000 for the year to June 2024, was also a hot button issue in last year’s vote. AFP
