Migrants will be sent back to France ‘again and again’ if they return to UK after being deported
The Government has struck an agreement with France to return a migrant who was deported across the Channel but made his way back to Britain, the Prime Minister has said.
The Iranian national was detained and the Government intends to send him back to France again after he crossed the Channel a second time, it is understood.
Sir Keir Starmer said there was an agreement with France to return the migrant, telling ITV Meridian: “The individual that has returned, he is already in detention. He will now be fast tracked back out of the country, because we obviously have his details.
“We know he hasn’t got a claim to make, therefore we’ll remove him very, very swiftly. So his return journey back to the United Kingdom is completely pointless, and it’s really important I make that absolutely clear.”
Children’s minister Josh MacAlister said it shows the Government’s one-in, one-out migrant returns deal with France is working.
He told Times Radio: “I think it shows the scheme working, because this guy came here. He shouldn’t have come here. He paid somebody, a smuggling gang, to cross the Channel.
“He was stopped, he was detained, and he was returned to France. He came again. He paid someone again, and he will be returned to France again.”
This sends a clear message to those who cross the Channel in small boats that “you will be deported”, Mr MacAlister said.
“You will go back to France. The money you’ve spent will be wasted. And if you do it again and again, you will be returned again and again.”
The minister could not say whether the man would be counted once or twice on the returns statistics.
The man who came back to the UK on October 18, after being sent to France on September 19, told the Guardian he was a victim of modern slavery at the hands of smugglers in the north of the country.
Mr MacAlister called this a “ludicrous claim”, and stressed that “France is a safe country”.
Details of the man’s re-entry emerged as the number of small boat arrivals for the year passed the total for 2024.
The number of migrants who have come to the UK so far this year in small boats has exceeded the total of 36,816 for the whole of last year, latest Home Office figures show.
Some 220 people made the journey in three boats on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative total for the year so far to 36,954.
The “one in, one out” deal struck between Sir Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron earlier this year is aimed at deterring small boat crossings by enabling deportations of anyone deemed not to have a right to stay in Britain.
The treaty means people who arrive in the UK by small boat can be detained and returned to France, in exchange for an equivalent number of people who applied through a safe and legal route.
France had also been expected to change the way it patrolled its waters to intercept the boats, but the BBC has reported that the country is backing away from that commitment, citing French sources.