Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 11 October (HL1831), how many arrests of illegal immigrants, and how many arrests for immigration offences, there were in each of the last five years; and how many of those arrested in each year (1) were deported from the UK, (2) remained in custody, and (3) were released within the UK.

It is not possible to provide information specific to the number of arrests for illegal immigrants because immigration offences cover a wide range of activities and the data specific to arrests for illegal immigration cannot be separated from arrests for other immigration offences. Additionally, an individual may be arrested for committing more than one offence, but as only one offence per arrest is recorded in a format that can be reported on centrally it is not possible to provide complete figures on arrests by individual offences type.

Information on arrests – either by an Immigration Enforcement or Police Officer – for committing an immigration offence is available. For the period 2011/12 to 2015/16, our records indicate that there were 119,730 arrests.

Data on the custody or detention status of those arrested cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost because checks of individual records would be required.