A police raid is an unexpected visit by police or other law enforcement officers with the aim of using the element of surprise to seize evidence or arrest suspects believed to be likely to hide evidence, resist arrest, endanger the public or officers if approached through other means, or simply be elsewhere at another time. Various tactics are used by law enforcement in raids that often vary based on available equipment, situational factors, laws, and police powers.
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The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) defines a raid as "a sudden appearance by officers for the purpose of arresting suspected law violators and seizing contraband and the means and instruments used in the commission of a crime." [1]
Dawn raids were a common event in Auckland, New Zealand, during a crackdown on illegal overstayers from the Pacific Islands from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The raids were first introduced in 1973 by Norman Kirk's Labour government and were continued by Robert Muldoon's National government. [2] These operations involved special police squads conducting raids on the homes and workplaces of overstayers throughout New Zealand usually at dawn. Overstayers and their families were often prosecuted and then deported back to their countries. [3] [4]
The Dawn raids were particularly controversial, as despite Pacific Islanders only making on one-third of visa over-stayers, they accounted for 86% of those arrested and prosecuted. [5] The majority of over-stayers were from Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa. [3] Due to opposition from the Pacific community including the Polynesian Panthers, Labour Party, and Pacific governments, the raids were abandoned by the National Government. [3]
In April 2021, members of the Pasifika community called for an official apology, describing the dawn raids as "government‑sanctioned racism". [6] In mid-June 2021, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed that the New Zealand Government would formally apologise for the Dawn Raids at the Auckland Town Hall on 26 June 2021. [7] [8]
In January 2007 Ruth Turner was arrested in a dawn raid as part of the investigation into the Cash for Peerages affair. [9] Senior Labour politicians criticised the move; [10] but their concern about this has been contrasted by their lack of concern at other dawn raids. [11]
In September 2005, Manuelo Bravo killed himself following a Dawn Raids. He and his son (13) were detained in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre where he had been threatened with deportation to Angola, where he feared his life was in danger as other family members had been killed there. [12]
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Dawn raids have become a regular feature in the arrest of asylum seekers in Scotland. These have caused a great deal of controversy and pressure has been brought to bear on the Scottish Executive to end the practise. Several support groups have been set up to oppose the practice of dawn raids, including the Glasgow Girls, the UNITY centre in Ibrox and No Border Network which campaigns under the slogan of "No one is illegal".
There has been speculation that the practice may be coming to an end [13] for asylum seekers following criticisms from a wide range of people. On 1 February 2007 the deputy First Minister, Nichol Stephen condemned the practise of dawn raids describing them as "unacceptable and unnecessary." [14] Some have speculated that this is part of a wider change in tactics on the issue of asylum, moving away from dawn raiding asylum seekers, to detaining families at reporting centres; [15] however, dawn raids have continued.
In 2002, Yurdugal Ay and her children were suddenly removed from their home by immigration officials and taken to Dungavel detention centre in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. They were all put together in one room where they lived for a year.
In September 2005, Isen and Nexhi Vucaj were dawn raided together with their three teenage children. They were taken to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre before being deported to Albania. [16]
On 8 February 2006, Lutfu and Gultan Akyol and their two children, aged 10 and 6, were dawn raided after home office officials battered down their door. They were taken to Dungavel following the raid [17]
In June 2006, Sakchai Makao, [18] a 23-year-old man from Thailand, was dawn raided in Lerwick. [19] A third of the Shetland Island population signed a petition to have him released. He was eventually released two weeks later. [20] The campaign to free him later won the Scottish politician of the year award.
On 12 July 2006, Servat and Sakine Temel and their three children were dawn raided and taken to England awaiting deportation to Turkey. [21]
In September 2006, Azzadine Benai escaped during a dawn raid on his home which saw his wife and two children (11 and 2) detained, by jumping out of a first floor window as he feared he would be killed if he was returned to Algeria. After public outcry, his wife and children, both of whom require ongoing medical treatment, were released. [22]
On 2 October 2006, Caritas Sony and her two children Heaven (2) and Glad (4 months) were dawn raided with a metal battering ram. They were taken to Dungavel prior to intended deportation to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Caritas had been raped and tortured before fleeing to the UK. [23] After a strong campaign, Caritas and her family were eventually released.
On 3 October 2006, the Uzun family managed to avoid being detained during a dawn raid, as they were absent at the time. They had gone to demonstrate solidarity with Caritas Sony. [24]
On 4 October 2006, Cem and Betsy Coban together with their two children, aged 14 and 3, were dawn raided. Cem Cobain threatened to jump from the balcony of his 20th storey flat rather than be deported to an uncertain future in Turkey, but after 3 hours of negotiations with Strathclyde Police he was eventually led away by immigration officials. Betsy was taken to hospital with complications related to a heart condition. [25]
On 19 March 2007, Max and Onoya Waku and their three children, aged 14, 11 and 4, were dawn raided by immigration officers and taken to Dungavel detention centre. They were later released.
A no-knock raid is a type of police raid performed under a no-knock warrant. No-knock warrants are controversial for various reasons, and have seen increased usage from the 1960s on. There have been many cases where armed homeowners, believing that they are being invaded, have shot at officers, resulting in deaths on both sides. [26]
The number of no-knock raids has increased from 3,000 in 1981 to more than 50,000 in 2005, according to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. [27] In 2010, Kraska estimated 60,000–70,000 no-knock or quick-knock raids were conducted by local police annually, the majority of which were looking for marijuana. [28]
In Utah, no-knock warrants made up about 40% of warrants served by SWAT teams in 2014 and 2015, usually for drugs and usually done at night. [29] In Maryland, 90% of SWAT deployments were to serve search warrants, with two-thirds through forced entry. [29] From 2010 through 2016, at least 81 civilians and 13 officers died during SWAT raids, including 31 civilians and eight officers during execution of no-knock warrants. [29] Half of the civilians killed were minorities. [29] Of those subject to SWAT search warrants, 42% are black and 12% are Hispanic. [29] Since 2011, at least seven federal lawsuits against officers executing no-knock warrants have been settled for over $1 million. [29]
Dawn raids are a tactic often used by law enforcement agencies in the United States. High-profile dawn raids include:
During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, the Nazis carried out numerous raids. The largest and most infamous is the Raid of Rotterdam on 10 and 11 November 1944, in which 52,000 men between the ages of 17 and 40 (some 80% of all men) from Rotterdam and Schiedam were rounded up and put on transport to labor camps.
The No Border Network refers to loose associations of autonomous organisations, groups, and individuals in Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and beyond. They support freedom of movement and resist human migration control by coordinating international border camps, demonstrations, direct actions, and anti-deportation campaigns.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety.
Immigration detention is the policy of holding individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, as well as those subject to deportation and removal until a decision is made by immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Mandatory detention refers to the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people seeking political asylum, or who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorized arrivals into a country. Some countries have set a maximum period of detention, while others permit indefinite detention.
Unity is a volunteer-run organisation which provides support for asylum seekers and sans papiers in Glasgow, Scotland. The Unity Centre has been open since 2006 and is situated in Ibrox, near to the Home Office Immigration Centre.
The Glasgow Girls is a group of seven young women in Glasgow, Scotland, who highlighted the poor treatment of asylum seekers whose rights of appeal had been exhausted. In 2005, the group campaigned against dawn raids, raised public awareness, and found support in the Scottish Parliament. Their story has been told in a musical and 2 documentaries.
Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre is an immigration detention facility in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, near the town of Strathaven that is also known as Dungavel Castle or Dungavel House. It is operated by Mitie Care and Custody, under contract with the law-enforcement command Immigration Enforcement for its detention of immigrants for the Home Office. It is the only such facility in Scotland.
The Ay family are Kurdish asylum seekers who became the centre of a controversy in 2003 surrounding the policy of locking up children in high security immigration detention centres in the United Kingdom.
Immigration New Zealand, formerly the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS), is the agency within the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that is responsible for border control, issuing travel visas and managing immigration to New Zealand.
In the United States, a no-knock warrant is a warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking or ringing a doorbell. In most cases, law enforcement will identify themselves just before they forcefully enter the property. It is issued under the belief that any evidence they hope to find may be destroyed between the time that police identify themselves and the time they secure the area, or in the event where there is a large perceived threat to officer safety during the execution of the warrant.
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is a detention centre for foreign nationals prior to their deportation from the United Kingdom, one of 10 such centres currently in the UK. It is located near Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire, England, and is operated by Serco, which describes the place as "a fully contained residential centre housing adult women and adult family groups awaiting immigration clearance." Its population is, and has been, overwhelmingly female.
Migration to New Zealand began only very recently in human history - with Polynesian settlement in New Zealand, then uninhabited, about 1250 CE to 1280 CE. European migration provided a major influx, especially following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Subsequent immigrants have come chiefly from the British Isles, but also from continental Europe, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia.
Sakchai Makao is a Thailand native who moved in 1993 to the islands of Shetland in Scotland. Sakchai was 10 years old at the time. In 2004 Sakchai was involved in crime which led to him being charged and convicted of "wilful fire-raising". In 2006, at the age of 23, Sakchai was detained under the UK Immigration Act during a dawn raid of his house by police and immigration officers in Lerwick (Shetland). He was immediately transported to the Scottish mainland at a facility in Aberdeen to be held until a deportation hearing could be held.
An immigration officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to ensure that immigration legislation is enforced. This can cover the rules of entry for visa applicants, foreign nationals or those seeking asylum at the border, detecting and apprehending those that have breached the border and removing them, or pursuing those in breach of immigration and criminal laws.
The UK Border Agency (UKBA) was the border control agency of the Government of the United Kingdom and part of the Home Office that was superseded by UK Visas and Immigration, Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in April 2013. It was formed as an executive agency on 1 April 2008 by a merger of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), UKvisas and the detection functions of HM Revenue and Customs. The decision to create a single border control organisation was taken following a Cabinet Office report.
The drug raid at the residence of Cheye Calvo, then-mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, was a controversial action taken by the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office and Police Department on July 29, 2008. The raid was the culmination of an investigation that began in Arizona, where a package containing 32 pounds (15 kg) of marijuana was intercepted in a warehouse, addressed to the mayor's residence. Instead of confiscating the package, police allowed it to be delivered. Upon arrival, a SWAT team raided the house and held Calvo and his mother-in-law at gunpoint, and shot and killed his two dogs, one as it attempted to run away.
Robina Qureshi is a Scottish human rights campaigner. She is a critic of the asylum policies of the United Kingdom, and has campaigned to stop inhumane treatment and close detention centres for asylum seekers.
Prostitution in East Timor is legal, but soliciting and third party involvement for profit or to facilitate prostitution is forbidden. Prostitution has become a problem since the country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, especially in the capital, Dili. There are estimated to be 1,688 sex workers in the country.
Since the creation of modern immigration controls in 1905, foreign nationals evading immigration control or committing crimes were regarded as a police matter and those people arrested were put before the courts whereupon they would be prosecuted and go through the deportation process. The United Kingdom Immigration Service's enforcement arm evolved gradually from the early 1970s onwards to meet demand from police for assistance in dealing with foreign national offenders and suspected immigration offenders within the UK. The wider history of UK immigration control is dealt with under UK immigration control - history.
The 2006 Swift raids were a coordinated effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport people who are present illegally.
The dawn raids were crackdowns in New Zealand from 1973 to 1979 and then sporadically afterward on alleged illegal overstayers from the Pacific Islands. The raids were first introduced in 1973 by Prime Minister Norman Kirk's Labour government, who discontinued them in April 1974. However, they were later reintroduced and intensified by Rob Muldoon's Third National government. These operations involved special police squads conducting often aggressive raids on the homes and workplaces of overstayers throughout New Zealand, usually at dawn and almost exclusively directed at Pasifika New Zealanders, regardless of their citizenship status. Overstayers and their families were often prosecuted and then deported back to their countries.