Racial profiling fears as British'¨stopped by immigration officers

Data uncovered in a collaborative investigation shows that 7,486 people were in the past five years subjected to spot checks by immigration officials in Leeds and Sheffield, with less than one in four later arrested.

Called ‘encounters’ by the Home Office, individuals are asked about their immigration status, and must be based on “reasonable suspicion”.

But of those individuals, it has emerged that 31 per cent were British and, as the Home Office confirms it does not collect data on their ethnicity, questions have now been raised over weaknesses in intelligence and possible discrimination.

“By reason of those individuals being British, by definition, any intelligence relied on to spot-check them must have been wholly flawed,” said leading human rights barristers Chris​ ​Williams​ ​and Nicola​ ​Braganza​ of Garden​ ​Court​ ​Chambers. “This begs the question as to what the actual reason is for so many ‘wrong’ spot-checks being carried out.

“Given the nature of the checks and that they target immigration offenders, the obvious inference is that those who ‘look’ like immigrants are targeted. That suggests that rather than immigration officials carrying out checks on an intelligence-led basis, as required, the checks are led by racial profiling.

“Those concerns must be addressed by the Home Office. What is clear is that if spot-checks are intelligence-led, the intelligence is not working.”

The seven-month investigation by The Bristol Cable and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism was based on Freedom of Information requests to the Home Office, covering the UK’s 11 major mainland cities for the five years to January 2017.

It found that 19,096 British citizens had been stopped and questioned for immigration crimes, including 817 in Leeds and 1,540 in Sheffield.

Nationally, British citizens were the most frequently stopped, accounting for nearly a fifth of all encounters, but in Sheffield the rate was highest in the country at 32.8 per cent.

‘’I am shocked and deeply concerned by the data revealing Sheffield as the hotspot when it comes to British nationals being stopped by Home Office immigration officers,” said Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP Gill Furniss.

“Actions like these will undoubtedly add to increasing tensions between our communities. I am calling for an urgent and comprehensive review into this matter to establish the facts. I want to know why British citizens from Sheffield are being targeted in this way.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “All Immigration Enforcement activity is intelligence-led and fully compliant with the Equality Act 2010.

“It is unlawful for an Immigration Officer carrying out their duties to undertake any act that constitutes direct discrimination based on a person’s race or ethnicity. A person’s colour or perceived ethnic origin can never be the basis of a reasonable suspicion that someone is an immigration offender. Nothing in the data provided indicates that this is happening.”