Immigration: Enforcement
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many arrests resulted from illegal working enforcement operations there have been in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Jones
The Home Office publishes data on illegal working enforcement activity, including the number of visits and arrests conducted by Immigration Enforcement teams by region.
The number of illegal working enforcement visits increased from over 6,000 in 2019 to almost 13,000 in 2025 while the number of arrests from these visits has increased from over 3,000 in 2019 to around 9,000 in 2025.
This data is published on GOV.UK alongside illegal working enforcement statistics: A full regional breakdown of illegal working visits and arrets for each year is available on GOV.UK:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/returns-from-the-uk-and-illegal-working-activity-since-july-2024/illegal-working-and-enforcement-activity-to-the-end-of-december-2025
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