DIEM: The Policy Framework for Immigration Enforcement in the UK

This paper, compiled as part of the ‘Does Immigration Enforcement Matter’ (DIEM) project, provides a comprehensive framework for immigration enforcement policy in the UK. It starts with an overview of the key immigration policy orientations from the 1960s until 2014. It then looks in more detail at how UK authorities have dealt with irregular migration on three levels: pre-entry (abroad); on-entry (at the borders); and after-entry (internally). The paper concludes by reflecting on two models of policy formulation that have been adopted by UK governments: ‘evidence-based policy-making’ and ‘policy-based evidence-making’.