Haringey Welcome statement – Immigration raid in Wood Green Tuesday 16 June
On the morning of 16 June Haringey Welcome was told by local people that an immigration raid in Wood Green was targeting delivery drivers.
The raid appears to have been a joint operation between the police and plain clothes immigration officers using unmarked vans. We don’t know yet whether anyone has been detained.
As residents, we utterly condemn these racist immigration raids in our community. These actions deliberately create fear, tension, and division among the local population, and upset many people. We reject this practice being inflicted by the state on our local area.
Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids have increased exponentially since Labour took office. They are as part of Yvette Cooper’s and then Shabana Mahmood’s strategy as Home Secretary, continuing and expanding the ‘tough’ immigration policies of the Tories, and mimicking the rhetoric of far-right parties.
We call for an end to these unaccountable fishing exercises that regularly swoop into our community. They cause stress and harm to our neighbours, friends, and fellow residents. They threaten the safety of individuals and undermine community cohesion.
This cynically political deployment of raids targeting racialised minorities must never be allowed to become normalised.