Home Office Immigration Working Raids and Indirect Discrimination

Indirect discrimination and working raids

You probably know that under this government Home Office “working raids” have become more frequent, ie the Home Office stage a raid on an establishment that they have reason to believe is employing workers illegally. There is you could say an “intensification” in this area. 

Some people have protested, saying that this is unfair. Specifically, a charitable organisation, Migrants’ Rights Network, lodged a High Court claim in Judicial Review on this matter. They said that the effect of these measures was indirectly discriminatory, and in the main the argument was that women and people of ethnic origin were thus being disadvantaged.

The High Court accepted the claim, indicating that they thought that there was at least something solid and something that could at least potentially succeed: 

The King otao Migrants’ Rights Network v SSHD [2026] EWHC 39 (Admin)

The problem for the claimants was the significant background that illegal working is wrong, and everybody knows that the Home Office does what it can to stamp it out. The Labour Government and its associated Home Office has made a big point out of this. One salient point about this is that such illegal workers surely do not pay any tax, and so HMRC is being cheated. 

In the hearing the Home Office did not deny that immigration raids had intensified, but they thought that this was all to the good, ie it was in furtherance of an important goal. They had produced various documents to demonstrate that their actions were compliant with the law but – and here was the crucial thing – they averred that the classic test for proportionality was satisfied:

The relevant Act of Parliament is the Equality Act 2010, and the Home Office stated that under the Act discrimination can be justified if it can be demonstrated that the action or policy is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. In this case, the intended action can be objectively justified. The operation seeks to achieve a legitimate aim, namely, the enforcement of immigration laws. The action to be taken is proportionate, namely to effect the arrest of and commence removal of those found to be in breach of immigration laws. 

Can the potential discrimination be avoided?

No. Targets are selected because they are believed to have breached immigration laws. They have, therefore, been selected for reasons entirely unconnected with the protected characteristics.

This form of words, that an action or policy needs to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim is something that rings down the ages and, if shown, is difficult to counter. 

The Home Office had made a point of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and the court could not find the Home Office to be at fault, and so the claimant’s claim failed. 

We do know of many cases where the Home Office is shown to have acted wrongly or inappropriately, but this was not one of them, and this case may reverberate in the future.

Oliver Westmoreland

Senior Immigration Lawyer