Corporate Watch looks at how the Home Office's Immigration Enforcement works

Corporate Watch, a non-profit group which describes itself as providing critical information on the social and environmental impacts of corporations and capitalism, last week published a in-depth report looking at how the Home Office's Immigration Enforcement works.

Image credit: UK GovernmentYou can read the report here.

Corporate Watch says its report draws on leaked Home Office intelligence documents from 2014's "Operation Centurion", alongside other public and confidential sources, including reports by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), replies to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and communication from members of the Anti Raids Network.

The report comes in the wake of the highly publicised Byron Hamburger immigration raid in July when 35 illegal workers were arrested at restaurants across London. The Guardian has more on that here.

According to the Corporate Watch report, the Home Office carries out around 6,000 such workplace raids a year, and these are routinely based on "low grade" public informing, employers reporting on workers, and Immigration Officers acting without legal warrants.

Corporate Watch gave the following key points in its report:

• The bulk of initial intelligence comes from around 50,000 "allegations" per year from "members of the public". Most tip-offs that actually lead to raids are classed as low grade "uncorroborated" information from "untested sources".

• 12 times more men than women are arrested in workplace raids; people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India make up 75% of those arrested. Restaurants and takeaways are the main types of businesses hit.

• Immigration Officers seek to follow up tip-offs by contacting employers and asking them to collaborate ahead of raids. This collaboration may include: handing over staff lists; handing over personal details including home addresses, which are then raided; helping arrange "arrests by appointment", as in Byron's case and also mentioned in the leaked "Operation Centurion" files.

• Besides Byron, high profile cases of employer-supported raids have included cleaning contractors Amey and ISS (working for SOAS university), and food delivery service Deliveroo in June 2016. In these three cases, raids occurred while companies were involved in disputes with workers and unions.

• In general, employers are not legally obliged to co-operate in these ways: they can give or withhold "consent". However, in practice, businesses complain that Immigration Officers often do not give the impression that co-operation is voluntary.

• The main pressure for co-operation is not legal but financial. Businesses are liable for a civil penalty of up to £20,000 per illegal worker found – although only if it was "readily apparent" that workers had no "right to work", e.g., their documents were obviously fake. But this can be reduced by £5,000 for general "co-operation", plus another £5,000 for "reporting" workers.

• A December 2015 report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found that officers had warrants in only 43% of raids. In most cases, they claim that business managers grant "informed consent" to enter – but there is no documentation to support this.

• Officers also claim that they act with "consent" in routinely rounding up and questioning people who are not named suspects. But the Chief Inspector found: "in the 184 files we sampled there was no record of anyone being 'invited' to answer 'consensual questions'".

Corporate Watch says that, even with maximum co-operation, Immigration Enforcement catches only a tiny proportion of people working illegally, with around 5,000 arrests a year, half of which lead to deportations.

As the report notes, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration last year published an inspection report of how the Home Office tackles illegal working which you can read here.