Lewisham condemns immigration raids - what happens now?

On the 22 of July, Lewisham council became the first local authority in the UK to pass a motion to review its work with Home Office immigration enforcement and refuse to assist on raids wherever “legally possible”.

The motion also includes reviewing the council’s data-sharing and service agreements, as well as not using council resources or public money for immigration enforcement.

 The motion is a step towards creating a “sanctuary corridor” between the six Green-led councils in London, with the other councils including Lambeth and Southwark promising similar motions.

A Home Office spokesperson said while all immigration enforcement visits are intelligence led, they “make no apology for joining forces with local authorities to enable information sharing and ultimately fighting criminals who fuel immigration crime ..

“Since coming into power, [Labour] have increased Immigration Enforcement action to the highest level in British history. This has delivered an 83% rise in illegal working arrests and 77% rise in raids between 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025.”

 According to Home Office data obtained under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act by the grassroots organisation, Lewisham Anti-Raids, Lewisham has become a “major focus” for immigration enforcement. Data shows 177 raids occurred in the SE13 area during 2025.

 “This motion goes right to the heart of the council we chose to be” said Councillor Hau-Yu Tam, cabinet member for communities, sanctuary and healing, during a speech introducing the motion.

“Only those who have never experienced or witnessed the full force of state racism could look at 77% rise on raids on British businesses since the current government took office and assume they will increase community safety and cohesion”.

The motion was seconded by Councillor Wellington Gil, who is the council’s first migrant champion, and who spoke from his own experiences as a migrant.

Gil said: “Imagine that you own a small business, work hard, pay your taxes, and still receive intimidating visits from immigration officers simply because they know you are a migrant. That is a disgrace. These are deeply racist practices.”

Speaking to Salamander, Tam elaborated the next steps in this process. “We will also look into things like procurement, to see what contracts we might have with certain companies who are complicit with migrant abuses. We need a more detailed picture of what the council does and does not do in this regard.”

The council will also work more closely with organisations like Lewisham Anti-Raids, AFRIL (the mayor’s charity) and LRMN to train the public and migrant businesses on how to legally resist the raids. “We want to train migrant businesses on their rights so it won’t be possible for immigration officers to proceed without being challenged. Things like 'Do you have a warrant? Where’s the consent form to take my phone?'".

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Tam is clear that the council would not violate its legal duties. “Obviously the law is the law and when we have a legal duty, for example, to report when we suspect there’s illegal working, we will not stop doing that. We will not aid and abet illegal working, but we have to ensure that the immigration officers conduct the raids in a way that respects people’s rights”.

The motion mentions two raids that occurred on 13 January 2026 in Brockley and in Catford, attended by the immigration minister, Mike Tapp MP followed by a Sky News team. “Only two arrests were made and both people were subsequently released on bail, highlighting the performative cruelty of such actions”, reads the motion.

At another raid at a Catford nail bar in May, East Asian women workers were “not arrested, but filmed being handcuffed and intimidated by a large team of officers.”

Tam added that “the arbitrariness of the immigration raids works to intimidate people and drives those who need support further underground.“

The cabinet member believes these new measures would help protect vulnerable migrant workers. “When I worked with hate crime victims, we wouldn’t get many migrants asking us for help, because they would be more worried about their work and their lives.

"Things like, 'if I get caught, how do I pay the bills', etc. We need to encourage trust, so migrants can be in a place where they are able to seek support. And this work is already been done by community organisations on the ground, we just want to give them more support”.

 A similar motion was proposed by Tam and seconded by Liam Shrivastava in January 2026, before the Greens took over the council in the May elections. Shrivastava was a councillor at the time and is now elected mayor of Lewisham.

The motion was neither discussed nor voted in January as the council meeting went over the three hour limit. Shrivastava and Tam moved a procedural motion to extend the meeting which was voted down by the Labour majority.

At the council meeting in July, Tam accused Labour of filibustering the motion she had proposed in January. “We could have taken a stronger stance against the raids that have happened since. Residents, politicians and communities were prevented from having that opportunity”, the councillor said.

Tam told Samander that Labour stopped the motion from being voted on in January  as “they did not want to go against their national party line, under which raids increased dramatically.

"They preferred to deny our voice and try to convince the public they were doing all they could as a Borough of Sanctuary to protect migrants, the most racialised people in our society. Labour then pretended they were always in favour of this position, when they spoke for their amendments to the motion last month”.

Salamander asked Lewisham Labour Group to comment on the Greens’ motion in January  and asked why the group did not propose their own version before the elections.  We were told that no member of the group would be commenting on this. 

Labour’s proposed amendments to the new motion eliminated the harshest language against the national government’s anti-immigration policies – deleting the words “cruel” and “punitive”. 

The amendments also introduced a commitment “to ensure no businesses in Lewisham are engaging in modern slavery, people-trafficking or exploitative labour practices by working with cross-functional teams within the council, community groups, and all relevant stakeholders.”

The amendments were criticised by deputy mayor Rudi Schmidt during the meeting. He accused Labour of downplaying the punitive and hostile activities of the Home Office. “The hostility towards migrants gives rise to an environment of fear that stops migrants from speaking out against their own exploitation and emboldens rogue employers that use vulnerable immigration statuses to force people into accepting exploitative work.

"If Labour was serious about ending modern day slavery, then they would call the hostile environment what it is: an enabler of exploitation.”

Schmidt added that Lewisham had "committed additional resources to trading standards enforcement” which would help identify and eliminate exploitative employment practices in the borough. 

Speaking with Salamander, Tam added: “The Greens want to defend communities from modern slavery and exploitation. Labour’s amendments are however premised on a mistaken or poorly evidenced understanding of what immigration raids in practice do.

"There is little evidence that immigration raids, by themselves, reduce modern slavery, and there is significant concern that they can sometimes make it harder to identify victims and prosecute exploiters.”

Salamander contacted the authors of the Labour amendments, Councillor Oana Olaru-Holmes and Councillor Andre Bourne, to request  comment on their deletion of language critical of the Home Office and to gain a better understanding of their position regarding  fighting modern slavery and cooperation with immigration enforcement. 

We were told that no members of Lewisham Labour group would be responding.

Reporting by Luís Lago, with additional reporting by Local Democracy Reporter Ruby Gregory.

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