The United Kingdom Immigration Service, also known as UKIS, was from 1906 to 2008 the distinctive operational arm of the UK Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) of the Home Office. It was responsible for the day to day administration of the United Kingdoms Border control and the operation of in-country enforcement against immigration offenders such as illegal entrants and over stayers as well as prosecutions for associated offences.



The degree of strictness of border controls depends on the country and the border concerned. In some countries, control may be targeted at the travelers national origin or other countries that have been visited. Others may need to be certain the traveller has paid the appropriate fees for their visas and has future travel planned out of the country.

Yet others may concentrate on the contents of the travellers baggage, and imported goods to ensure nothing is being carried that might bring a bio security risk into the country. In the member states of the Schengen agreement, internal border control is often virtually unnoticeable, and often only performed by means of random car or train searches in the hinterland, while controls at borders with non-agreement states may be rather strict.Immigration refers to the movement of people among countries. While the movement of people has existed throughout human history at various levels, modern immigration implies long-term permanent residence. Short-term visitors and tourists are considered non-immigrants (see expatriate).

Immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country is termed illegal immigration. Under this definition, an illegal immigrant is a foreigner who either illegally crossed an international political border, whether by land, water, or air, or a foreigner who legally entered a country but overstays his/her visa_(document) in order to live and/or work therein. Seasonal labour migration, while generally non-permanent in nature (typically for periods of less than a year), is often treated as a form of immigration.

Illegal immigration refers to immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. In politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues and time constraints with disputed consequences in areas such as economy, social welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, crime, legal protections, voting rights, public services, and human rights. Illegal emigration, in contrast, refers to unlawfully leaving a country.

The BIA was responsible for delivering the e-border programme,a modernised border control system proposed by UK Government and a new programme of biometrically controlled identity documents for foreign nationals. If a page was recently created here, it may not yet be visible because of a delay in up dating the database; wait a few minutes and try the purge function. Titles on Wikipedia are case sensitive except for the first character please check alternate capitalizations and consider adding a redirect here to the correct title. UKIS grades are/were reflective of the legislation that controls the immigration function that stipulates that the decision to refuse a person leave to enter the United Kingdom is taken by an Immigration Officer only with the authority of a Chief Immigration Officer or an HM Inspector (immigration inspector).

The decision that a person inside the UK is in breach of immigration law and liable for administrative removal or deportation can be taken by an Immigration Officer or a caseworker of Executive Officer grade or above acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, with the authority of a Chief Immigration Officer or Higher Executive Officer. The removal of such offenders may only be enforced with the authority of an HM Inspector(immigration inspector) or Senior Executive Officer.

Inspectors are one of the grades within what was known as the UK Immigration Service which was officially subsumed into the Border and Immigration Agency in 2007 but generally manage a distinctive command structure made up of other warranted officers including Assistant Immigration officers, Immigration officers and Chief Immigration Officers. Immigration Officers at Airports and Seaports have been uniformed since 2007 but the uniform is expected to change after the merger with HM Revenue & Customs.

The future of the agencies enforcement arm is very unclear. The creation of the UK Border Agency is expected to allow the contracting of many of its services and steps have been taken towards unifying the pay structures of immigration and customs staff. The distinct enforcement arm of UKBA has been split up into regional structures that combine enforcement and case working functions. How this will work in practice is unclear.