Immigration Raids Case Study: The Irish Sea and Common Travel Area (CTA)

Belfast has continued to be the largest hotspot for immigration raids, far outpacing the number of raids in all other areas that we have data for (see our 2024 report here). This has not changed. Similarly, Birkenhead and Stranraer have remained in second and third place, quite ahead of anywhere else in Britain. 

As part of our Hostile Office campaign, we have been examining how immigration raids operate across the UK, including the impact on racialised, migrant and migratised communities in hotspot areas like Belfast, London, Birkenhead and Dover.

We define immigration raids as all enforcement actions or operations taken by Immigration (and Compliance) Enforcement (IE/ICE). This includes what people would traditionally think of as a raid, where ICE officers enter a person’s home or workplace and arrest them, but also encompasses public checks of immigration status, like at a checkpoint on the street outside a place of worship, a community hub or transport hub. Government data in contrast refers to these incidents as ‘encounters,’ including people who are arrested as well as those who are spoken to or whose legal status is checked without further action during an immigration raid. We view this language as minimising the harm of raids.

Why is this area so high?

To recap on our previous research: Transport hubs in Belfast, such as airports and Belfast Harbour, are focal points for raids due to the movement of people between Britain and the Republic of Ireland via the Common Travel Area (CTA). Stranraer and Birkenhead docks are thereby targeted as the other side of travel routes across the Irish Sea.

Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) Operations, such as Operation Gull and Bi-Vector, are collaborations between British and Irish (both North and South) policing and border enforcement agencies that cover the CTA. As a result, the UK Border Agency, the Police Service NI (PSNI), Police Scotland, the Garda Síochána, and the Garda National Immigration Bureau are all involved in Operation Gull, covering all main routes of travel by car, ferry and plane in and out of the North of Ireland.

Because of the lack of a hard border and different immigration enforcement powers in the North of Ireland, border policing in the CTA is often carried out through racial profiling, according to a number of organisations on either side of the border. Counter-terror powers and operations, such as Operation Bi-Vector and Schedule 7, enable people to be stopped outside of normal procedures and protections. It is through this that many people are referred to immigration authorities.

A closer look

Immigration raids have remained high in Belfast, Stranraer and Birkenhead in our latest data (October 2023-September 2024). Belfast, Stranraer and Birkenhead formed a similar percentage of all immigration raids between our previous data period (January 2022-September 2023) and current data period – 16.82% (2022-23) and 14.07% (2023-24). 

The average number of raids per month have declined slightly in Belfast (BT3) from 64 to 58, and declined more so in Stranraer from 55 to 41. Meanwhile, average raids per month increased significantly in Birkenhead and Belfast International Airport, roughly doubling in both cases from 24 to 48 and 24 to 40, respectively. 

The increases in raids at Belfast International Airport accompany rises at other airports, including Liverpool John Lennon Airport (L24), which saw an increase from 5 to 17 average raids per month, and EH12, which covers Edinburgh Airport, where average numbers of raids increased from less than 1 per month to almost 6.

 We will be releasing further updates on immigration raids in the North of Ireland, as well as other parts of the UK. In the meantime, you can find the rest of our work on raids, including our immigration raids reporting form, here.

See also: Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, BrexitLawNI, Migrant Rights Centre Ireland