Two people were taken away by officers

IMMIGRATION enforcement officers raided an area where people experiencing homelessness are living in a move that onlookers described as “hostile” and an attack on the most vulnerable who “don’t have a door to close and keep them out”.

Around eight home office immigration officers – all wearing stab vests and carrying handcuffs and batons – descended on Euston Road, opposite Warren Street station, on Tuesday where tents house people who are sleeping rough. Eyewitnesses saw officers take away two people from Euston Road in vans at around 10am before leaving.

The home office later confirmed that immigration conducted 10 person checks, five individuals were arrested and five were cleared. The Extra understands that a bystander who tried to intervene was also detained by police but later released.

Elodie Berland, from grassroots group Streets Kitchen, who witnessed the incident, said she initially approached a plain-clothes officer who told her they were doing a “welfare check” on the people there, before seeing the two being taken away in separate vans.

“There was something wrong, I noticed an immigration van parked so I crossed over to the tents to speak to people to see what was going on,” she said. “I approached a young man who was being questioned and a home office officer approached me and blocked my way between the immigration cops and the friend being arrested. He towered over me and told me he was the head of the enforcement operation and that it was led by the police and that you cannot obstruct the officers’ work, that we can film and can take pictures, but if you obstruct what we are doing you are going to be in the same situation as the bystander at the end of the tent who was being detained for speaking out.

“I stood there to make sure the friend was OK and they took him away.

“These raids are relentless. They say they are doing welfare checks. Welfare of who? And then they arrest people. Having so many vans and so many officers, it’s crazy.”

Ms Berland regularly attends the area as part of outreach work with people sleeping rough, checking on their welfare and providing them with food and essentials such as sleeping bags. She added: “It’s hostile. It breaks my heart. We checked on everyone living there, it is crazy they are so used to this hostile behaviour.

“They get abused on a daily basis. People are being criminalised, arrested, deported for trying to survive. When they are out there, trying to make money to have food on a table outside of their tent, they are getting arrested for that.”

At the start of September there was a raid at a café in Camden Town where enforcement officers eventually “stood down”, saying they had received a tip-off about illegal immigration activity. They did not take anyone away with them.

A spokesperson from Camden Anti-Raids said: “We are disgusted by enforcers of the hostile environment reaching into our communities and taking away our neighbours, especially when it’s people who don’t have a front door to close and keep them out.

“Camden has one of the worst records in the country on homelessness and this is intimately linked with racist hostile environment policies. While the raid was happening, Labour canvassers gathered in Kentish Town to try and garner votes in favour of those very policies. Camden say they are running a borough of sanctuary while they support and are part of the same regime that oversees this.

“We would urge anyone seeing police or immigration targeting people to let your neighbours know via our alerts chat, and to look up info on our social media about how to intervene in a raid.”