Immigration officials arrested 14 people today during an operation at Walthamstow Central station.

The arrests were made as officers questioned people to check if they were in the UK illegally.

12 people suspected of being illegal immigrants were arrested in the street, while two were held during follow-up house searches.

Those arrested are from Pakistan, India, Nigeria and Ghana and will be considered for removal from the UK.

The operations are being carried out across London and concerns have been raised that they are based on racial profiling.

Reacting to the officers' presence this morning, Christine Quigley tweeted: “Sounds like UKBA checkpoint today in Walthamstow only stopping minority ethnic people. FYI UKBA - not all British people are white.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We make no apology for enforcing our immigration laws and our officers carry out hundreds of operations like this every year around London.

“Where we find people who are in the UK illegally we will seek to remove them.”

Arona Sarwar, a lawyer based in Hoe Street with 15 years experience in immigration cases, said UKBA has powers to carry out random checks, but their methods need to be monitored to ensure discrimination does not take place.

“If they’re stopping white, Asian and afro-Caribbean that’s fine, if they don’t you’re not adopting a fair policy because you can be shown to be discriminating,” she said.

“I think people feel that they’ve integrated or they were born here so why would those people be randomly stopped.”

She said no one had contacted her yet about the operation.

She added that if anyone felt they had been unfairly targeted, they need to take the details of the officer in question as it can be difficult to trace the incident.

The Home Office have been contacted for further information.