Making People Criminal: The Role of the Criminal Law in Immigration Enforcement

Abstract

This article analyses the recent expansion of immigration offences and the reasons for relying on the criminal law and its institutions for immigration enforcement. By relating the scholarship on (over) criminalisation with the growth of immigration offences, it explains the origins of the use of criminal law for regulatory purposes and their influence in the immigration control system in Britain. The great reliance on the criminal law to regulate immigration in the last two decades is distinctive of a period in which crime and immigration have been increasingly politicised. In immigration enforcement, criminal law serves both symbolic and practical purposes as many of these offences are used primarily as threats to enforce compliance and against those who cannot be removed.

Keywords: immigration crimes, UK Border Agency, criminalisation, fraud, removability