Recommendation 19

We asked about the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on the Department’s immigration enforcement activities.52 The Department has teams in EU countries which support its work to prevent unlawful entry to the UK and to tackle organised immigration crime. The Department told us the Dublin II agreement allows it to pass responsibility for some asylum cases to EU member states, for example where non-EU nationals enter the UK by clandestine or illegal means from EU countries.53 The Department also explained it has a series of prison transfer arrangements linked to the EU which support the return of foreign national offenders. But the Department believed that many of the arrangements for returns with individual EU member states are done bilaterally, rather than through the EU and Commission.54