Almost 1,000 people have been removed from the UK through Northern Ireland over the past year as part of intensified immigration enforcement action. The Home Office says it is expanding operations to track down, detain, arrest, and remove illegal migrants.

The department says there have been 2,682 raids aimed at detention and removal since the Labour government came to power. That represents an increase of 16% compared with the final 21 months of the previous Conservative administration. Those operations have led to 2,233 arrests or detentions for immigration offences.

Around 70% of activity is carried out through Operation Gull, a long-running intelligence-led initiative at Northern Ireland’s domestic air and sea ports. It is operated jointly by the Home Office, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Police Scotland, and Ireland’s Garda Síochána. The operation targets people suspected of abusing Common Travel Area rules.

More than 900 immigration offenders were detected last year under Operation Gull. The three most commonly encountered nationalities were Romanian, Albanian, and Afghan, with 83, 44, and 30 detentions respectively.

The Common Travel Area, established in 1922, allows passport-free travel for British and Irish citizens between the UK, Ireland, and the Crown Dependencies. Other nationalities must present a passport and sometimes a visa. People found without the correct documents can be detained and returned to the Republic of Ireland, unless they claim asylum, in which case they enter the UK system.

Unionist parties have applied pressure on the government to address the number of migrants entering Northern Ireland illegally from the Republic of Ireland. In response, the Home Office is planning more intelligence-led operations by Immigration Enforcement and Border Force along Common Travel Area routes.

The number of asylum seekers in supported accommodation in Northern Ireland now stands at 2,379, a decrease from earlier levels.

At the UK-Ireland Summit in March, both governments agreed to expand immigration data-sharing to prevent abuse of the Common Travel Area by those not entitled to free movement. The Irish Department of Justice has described the invisible border as among the most tangible gains of the peace process and said both jurisdictions share a responsibility to protect the arrangement.