Illegal workers arrested in raids on nail salons, restaurants.
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Home Office Illegal workers - their faces blurred - leave a car wash in south London at the Home Office
The raids were carried out across the country - including a car wash in south London
Hundreds of migrants were arrested in January as part of a UK-wide crackdown on illegal work, the government said.
Law enforcement teams raided 828 premises, including nail salons, car washes and restaurants, and made 609 arrests, a 73 per cent increase since last January.
Home Secretary Dame Angela Eagle told the BBC that the decision to release footage of the arrests was intended to send a message about the reality of illegal work and defended the government's approach as "compassionate".
Later on Monday, MPs will debate the government's immigration bill. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called it "a weak bill that won't stop the ships." Vape shops in Cheshire and a food warehouse in south London are among the locations raided.
Those arrested travelled to the UK via various routes, including across the Channel and under their legitimate visas.
Despite a landslide election victory seven months ago, Labour strategists are increasingly concerned about losing pro-immigration voters to the Reform Party in the next election.
Analysis by Chris Mason: Ministers want to get tough on immigration
Party figures believe that simply describing the arrests and deportations is not enough - hence the decision to release footage of the arrests today, allowing people to see for themselves.
But other Labor members fear that the emphasis on illegal immigration will only increase the importance of an issue on which they cannot and will never take as tough an approach as the Reform Party. Some Labour MPs, particularly on the left of the party, believe the government should do more to create safe and legal routes for people to come to the UK and to promote the benefits of immigration.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Dame Angela was asked whether the release of footage of the raids was in line with Sir Keir Starmer's previous pledge to create an immigration system "based on compassion and dignity".
"I don't believe for one minute that enforcing the law and making sure people who break the law face the consequences, right down to deportation, arrest, is not compassionate," she said.
She added that "it's important that we show what we're doing and it's important that we send a message to people who may have been sold lies about what will happen to them in the UK if they smuggle themselves."
The government also aims to reduce the number of hotels hosting asylum seekers, Dame Angela said. Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Monday, he said there were plans to close nine of the 218 hotels currently in use by the end of March.
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Since the start of the Labour government in July to January 31, 3,930 arrests have been made in 5,424 visits by immigration officers, the Home Office said.
A total of 1,090 civil penalty notices have also been issued, with employers facing fines of up to £60,000 per worker if found liable.
During the same period, four of the "largest repatriation flights in UK history" also took place, the Home Office said, sending back more than 800 people.
But the UK's Reform leader, Nigel Farage, described the new figures released by the government as low compared to the number of people entering the country. In the 31 days to January, 1,098 people arrived illegally in the UK in small boats.
The government said it launched a social media campaign in Vietnam in December and Albania in January to discourage people from making the journey to the UK.
The adverts highlight stories of migrants who entered the UK illegally "only to face debt, exploitation and a life far removed from what they were promised", the Home Office said.
Dame Angela said the campaign was launched to counter "quite sophisticated adverts" placed online by people smugglers who "lie about the situation in Britain, about how easy it is to find work".
People who arrive in the UK illegally are "more likely to live in squalid conditions and be exploited by evil gangs", she said. The government's Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will be debated in the House of Commons at its second reading.
The bill aims to introduce a series of new offences and counter-terrorism-style powers to crack down on people smugglers who smuggle migrants across the Channel.
But Labour ministers have not given a specific target for reducing the number of boat crossings.
The Conservatives said they had tabled an amendment to the immigration bill to include their immigration proposals: doubling the time it takes for migrants to get indefinite leave to remain and then forcing them to wait five years instead of one before they can apply for citizenship.
Philp added that there needs to be "an effective deterrent to deportations" to stop the crossing of small boats, a measure he said Labor abandoned over the former government's plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
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