Raids being disrupted every week, say Immigration Services Union

On 27th September, BBC’s File on 4 produced an episode on illegal working called ‘Working in the Shadows’. The programme also discussed enforcement operations and the resistance they have been met with. Simon Cox interviews a representative from the Immigration Services Union to find out more about the scale of opposition to these raids. Her response suggests there are acts of unreported rebellion, solidarity and protest now occurring on a regular basis across the capital and possibly beyond. What follows is taken from the programme’s transcript.

COX: [… ]The Home Office say only a handful of operations have been disrupted, but Lucy Moreton from the Immigration Services Union says it’s happening a lot more often than that.

MORETON: Missiles have been thrown – eggs most predominantly, but rocks. Vans get blocked in; we’ve had vans with the tyres slashed. We’ve had instances  where officers have had to retreat, as I said, inside commercial premises and wait to be rescued.

COX: Those anti raids groups that you talk about, how  effective are they at disrupting action by immigration enforcement?

MORETON: That depends on who you talk to. Senior managers within immigration enforcement will tell us that only a very small number of high profile operations have been successfully disrupted. What my members are telling me is that immigration enforcement jobs are disrupted to a greater or lesser extent pretty much every week.