FOI Home Office Immigration Enforcement (0628-2024/25)

Request
Q1. If your force referred victims and witnesses of crime to the Home Office for immigration enforcement between 1 January 2019 and 1 January 2024?

Q2. How many victims and witnesses were referred to the Home Office for immigration enforcement between 1 January 2019 and 1 January 2024?

Q3. What was the nationality of the people referred to the Home Office in these instances?

Extent of Searches to Locate Information
Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision
Your request for information below has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) although North Yorkshire Police do refer victims and witnesses to immigration enforcement, the data is not held in such a way that can be easily retrieved. It is estimated that the cost of complying with your request for information would exceed the “appropriate costs limit” under Section 12(2) of the Act.

Section 12 (2) allows a public authority to refuse a request where it estimates that it would exceed to appropriate limit to either comply with the request in its entirety or confirm or deny whether the requested information is held.

Due to the nature of our recording systems; the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. To establish if any information relevant to your request is held by North Yorkshire Police, a manual review of each case file across the requested time frame would be required. It is not known whether the information retrieved, if possible, would be an accurate representation or reliable set of data.

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.