Brits most ‘stopped and checked’ for immigration crimes they can’t commit
Data suggests racial profiling across all Kent postcodes.
Home Office data uncovered by a Shepwayvox Team investigation suggests that immigration officers have used racial profiling techniques to stop and question 2,275 British citizens over the past three years across all Kent Postcodes.
One in four of the 8,754 spot-checks by immigration officers across all Kent Postcodes (BR, CT, DA, ME and TN) were British citizens, making British citizens the national group most stopped by far between 2016 and April 2019.
This is despite the fact that British citizens cannot be immigration offenders, and that Home Office Guidance states operations are meant to be carried out on an ‘intelligence-led basis’.
Barristers specialising in human rights from Garden Court Chambers said the data suggests “that rather than immigration officials carrying out checks on an intelligence-led basis, as required, the checks are led by racial profiling”.
They went further to say that “by reason of those individuals being British, by definition, any intelligence relied on to spot-check them must have been wholly flawed”.
The data obtained by the Shepwayvox Team, breaks down the number of nationals stopped by immigration officers across all postcodes in Kent.
The figures provide the first public evidence to challenge the strength of the ‘intelligence’ used by immigration officers and the basis on which British citizens are stopped and checked for crimes they cannot commit.
The figures were not publicly available when the issue was brought to light four years ago, when the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) wrote to the Home Office concerning possible racial bias of immigration officers. At the time, claims of racial profiling at transport hubs were dismissed by Mark Harper, the then minister of state for immigration, who insisted that the operations were evidence-based.
The data clearly points to racial profiling practices by the Home Office. It continues the ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy that former Home Secretary Theresa May and now Prime Minister introduced and the current government is intent on pursuing, no matter what the impact on communities and individuals.
The graph below is sufficient evidence that racial profiling continues and we the Shepwayvox Team are increasingly concerned about the intelligence used by the Home Office to stop and check people here in Kent.
The data has also brought to light the weak stop-to-arrest ratio of these ‘intelligence-led’ operations. Of the Brits stopped and checked, only six of them went onto be arrested which is equivalent to 0.25% of the 2,275 stopped and checked.
The Home Office’s guidance states that immigration enforcement must be in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, citing that officers “must be able to demonstrate and record their ‘reasonable suspicion’, supported by their clear rationale, in all cases”.
Other relevant guidance states,
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“Reasonable suspicion can never be supported on the basis of personal characteristics. It must rely on intelligence or information about, or some specific behaviour by, the person concerned.”
I have been stopped four times. I am Afro Caribbean. The Guys who stopped me on each occasion were the same immigration officers, so it was definitely racial profiling. I made a formal complaint and thankfully I haven’t been stopped since. Thanks for the article.
I am of another skin colour and all to often here in Kent and London, where I work as a Solicitor, I get a tug at the Train Station mainly. To me it appears that it is definitely racial profiling. Good Investigation highlighting discrimination. Thank you.