Updated briefing on immigration offences: trends in legislation and criminal and civil enforcement
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford earlier this month updated its useful briefing looking at laws governing immigration offences in the UK and trends in enforcement. It's available here.
Image credit: UK GovernmentAs the briefing notes, the period from 1999 to 2009 witnessed the fastest and largest expansion of the list of immigration crimes since 1905: "From 1999 to 2009 new legislation created 84 new immigration offences, more than double the number of offences that had been created since 1905."
The Immigration Act 2016 adds five new criminal offences, including one for landlords who rent to a tenant who they knew or had reasonable cause to believe was disqualified from renting. A landlord could face up to 5 years imprisonment if found guilty.
The Migration Observatory says that since the mid-2000s, prosecutions and convictions of immigration offenders have decreased in magistrates courts and increased in crown courts. The decline in magistrate cases may be due to a Home Office policy change to reserve prosecutions for the most serious offences, the briefing speculates.
Looking specifically at the year 2015, the briefing found that the majority of convictions (78%) are for three crimes: assisting unlawful immigration (62% of the total); seeking leave to enter or remain or postponement of revocation by deception (9%); and being unable to produce an immigration document at a leave or asylum interview (7%).
In 2015, 583 people were proceeded against in magistrates' courts and 429 people were proceeded against in crown courts for immigration related offences. The Migration Observatory notes that this figure is far below the 29,335 people who were subject to 'enforced removal' and 'refusal of entry at port and subsequently removed' in the same year (for more information on deportations and removals from the UK, see the Migration Observatory's August 2016 briefing here).
The briefing also notes that criminal prosecutions and convictions for illegal employment have increased in the last few years. Civil penalties issued since the introduction of the Civil Penalty Scheme in February 2008 ranged from 1,270 in 2012-13 to a peak of 2,594 in 2015-16. The value of the collected civil penalties increased from 2008-2009 and peaked in 2010-2011 at £6.9 million (however, the amounts for the last two years were unavailable).