Home Office TikTok posting immigration arrests ‘turning raids into click-bait’
A new Home Office TikTok account posting footage of deportations and arrests by immigration enforcement has been criticised as turning raids into “click-bait online entertainment”.
Secure Borders UK was set up on Tuesday with the slogan: “Restoring order and control to our borders.” The first 20-second video shared shows people handcuffed and escorted onto planes, and raids being carried out to arrest illegal workers. It ends with a message reading: “And it’s just getting started.” Refugee charity Freedom From Torture branded the move as “more populist, dehumanising social media content designed to distract and divide us”. The Refugee Council also said there is “little evidence” that these types of messages work. According to The Sun newspaper, the Home Office said the account is aimed at tackling online misinformation and to deter people from making the dangerous crossing over the English Channel. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp told the paper: “This is yet another pathetic gimmick that won’t work. “The idea that putting some posts on TikTok will stop illegal immigrants is laughable – just like the Government’s previous gimmick to smash the gangs.” But head of asylum advocacy at Freedom From Torture, Sile Reynolds, said: “This Government is clearly hooked on the cheap political points it can score by turning the brutality of enforcement raids into click-bait online entertainment. “This style of political communication provokes the kind of anxiety and fear that fuelled the summer riots and the recent violence directed at asylum hotels.” She added that caring people in the UK are “increasingly alarmed” by the Government’s “performative cruelty” towards migrants and called for ministers to focus on uniting the country and use its TikTok account to “tell a more hopeful story about our capacity to welcome those seeking sanctuary in the UK”. Imran Hussain, director of external affairs at Refugee Council said: “Only a small proportion of refugees in Europe come to the UK. “Those that do come here do so because they have existing links with the UK – like having family here, speaking English, or long-standing cultural links. “TikTok videos will not change this.” He said that most asylum removals are voluntary rather than forced, adding: “Supporting people to leave with dignity is the best way of increasing the removals of those who have been found to have no right to stay here after a fair hearing.” It comes as the Home Office published figures showing a record level of arrests and visits over illegal working since current records began in 2019. Some 12,791 visits took place in 2025, up 57% from 8,122 in the previous year, to businesses such as nail bars, car washes, barbers and takeaway shops. Arrests were also at a record high of 8,971 last year, up nearly 59% compared to 5,647 in 2024 – the previous highest point in data published by the Home Office. Of those arrested, 1,087 people have been removed from the UK so far. The Home Office also said visits were up 77% and arrests were up 83% since Labour came to power. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: ”There is no place for illegal working in our communities. “That is why we have surged enforcement activity to the highest level in British history so illegal migrants in the black economy have nowhere to hide.” On Tuesday, shadow home office minister Matt Vickers told Press Association: “The reality is, there’s a hell of a lot more enforcement to do, because a hell of a lot more people are coming to the country illegally. “We need to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights). We need to remove people who come in to this country illegally – no ifs, no buts. “And those people caught working illegally in this country, we’re saying that they should be deported, we’re saying that their wages should be used to remove them from this country. We need to stop messing and tinkering around the edges.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub