Forty illegal immigrants a day are being arrested in Britain as enforcement squads crack down on Indian and Chinese restaurants, petrol stations and car washes.

An increase in raids on premises known for employing people in the black economy has helped to bolster the number of illegal immigrants being picked up by the authorities.

Home Office figures show outstanding fines of more than £1 million on Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan restaurants and almost £500,000 on Chinese restaurants and takeaways after illegal immigrants were discovered working there.

Among those detained by immigration enforcement teams are visitors who have overstayed their visas and migrants who have been smuggled into Britain.

Enforcement squads swoop on petrol stations and Chinese take-aways (PA)

The latest figures show that the number of arrests for illegal working has doubled over the past four years, rising from about 20 a day in 2010 to 40 a day last year.

Overall the number of arrests has almost doubled since 2010 to 14,338 last year according to Home office data released under freedom of information laws.

Philip Davies, the Conservative who is defending the Shipley constituency in West Yorkshire, said the statistics demonstrated that border controls were still inadequate.

“These figures perfectly show that our border controls are still not good enough, and that the consequence of that is unnecessary victims of crime,” he told The Times.

He added that the Human Rights Act needed to be scrapped to ensure that illegal immigrants could not find a bogus reason to remain in Britain.

The statistics show that arrests fell from 7,920 in 2010 to 7,792 in 2011, then increased to 9,269 in 2012 and jumped to 15,098 in 2013.

Meanwhile, the number of foreigners winning British citizenship has plummeted to the lowest level since 2002, figures show.

Analysis of official data by Oxford University showed just under 126,000 foreign nationals were awarded citizenship - thus entitling them to a British passport – in 2014, a fall of 40 per cent year-on-year.

Source: The Telegraph