Director General of Immigration Enforcement

Bas Javid

Biography

Bas was appointed Director General for Immigration Enforcement at the Home Office in November 2023, following a diverse career in public service.

Born to Pakistani immigrants, he was raised in various locations and speaks several languages.

Bas served in the Royal Navy from March 1988 as a helicopter engineer and took part in Operation Desert Storm.

He joined Avon and Somerset Police in November 1993. He had a number of roles in his police career including serving as a detective chief inspector with West Midlands Police, a superintendent in Sandwell and chief superintendent in Solihull.

His career progressed to the Metropolitan Police, becoming Commander for Frontline Policing in London and later Deputy Assistant Commissioner from March 2021 to November 2023.

Bas is educated in criminology, with academic contributions to the field, and has served on the Board of Governors at Sandwell College.

Outside of work, Bas’s interests include motorcycling, aviation, exercise and cooking.

Director General of Immigration Enforcement

The Director General is responsible for:

• leading and developing a team of roughly 6,200, including a uniformed front-line workforce and managing an annual budget of approximately £779 million

• the development and delivery of complex operational programmes to target the gangs and criminals who support illegal immigration and exploit the vulnerable

• tackling illegal migration, removing those with no right to be here and protecting the vulnerable

• leading the Immigration Enforcement workforce, which includes uniformed enforcement teams and criminal and financial investigators, investigating organised immigration crime and stopping people from selling smuggled goods or employing illegal workers

• leading and ensuring the operational effectiveness of casework teams whose role it is to ensure the removal from the country of people who have no right to be here, including the deportation of foreign national offenders

• overseeing the immigration detention estate and the escorting contract (the management of which is contracted out to commercial partners)

• administering the compliant environment - a suite of measures designed to deny access to work, benefits and services to those who are here illegally

• contributing to cross-departmental governance as a member of the Home Office Executive Committee (ExCo) and other key governance forums for the Home Office.

Home Office and Immigration Enforcement