The Border and Immigration Agency aims to provide a 'strong and accountable immigration service'. David Roberts spoke to Chris Hudson - the man charged with carrying this out in the North-East.

Chris Hudson, the Border and Immigration Agency's (BIA) newly appointed regional director for the North-East, Yorkshire and Humberside, believes the key to a successful immigration policy is engaging with local communities.

Prior to the agency's creation last month, that was something that was more difficult at a senior level.

The BIA is a semi- autonomous body which is divided into six regions, each with a director at its head.

Previously it was all part of the London-based Home Office.

As a testament to his commitment to finding out the problems of immigration, Mr Hudson accompanied the raids in Darlington on Thursday evening.

He said: "We want to work with local groups and organisations to try to work together.

"I hope in future we'll be able to have a much stronger dialogue about migration, both in its positive forms and the negative - in the sense of those trying to work illegally.

"We have to make sure that we're doing what's best for the UK economy - we don't want to tackle lawful migrants."

The North-East region is divided into two sub-regions - Tyne and Tees.

In the past 12 months, 343 people were removed from the North-East as a result of immigration officials.

In the past six months, 68 raids were carried out in the region, 30 in the Tees area and 38 in the Tyne area. These resulted in 191 people being detained - 82 in Tees and 109 in the Tyne area.

Mr Hudson said: "This regional role is quite a significant change in the way that we operate.

"In the past it's tended to be very much on a national level and most of the discussions have been on that level.

"We hope that now we'll be closer to the local communities and they will understand more about what we do."

The problem of people-trafficking has made immigration a particularly controversial subject recently.

While Mr Hudson acknowledges that, in some cases, there are people who are making money from illegal immigration, this is not always the case.

He said: "In the case of these particular raids, it was mainly ad hoc working.

"We can't confirm it, but there may have been some kind of family or friendship connection.

"Some communities have networks of contacts, but there are cases where it's more organised exploitation.

"Sometimes, they're not necessarily here illegally, but they're being exploited by their employers."