Arrivals in Dover held at immigration removal centres on first day of pilot scheme

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer (left) and France's President Emmanuel Macron. Photo / Ludovic Marin, AFP

The first migrants have been detained as part of the United Kingdom-France returns deal.

Pictures taken yesterday NZT showed a UK Border Force boat ferrying migrants, including children, into the Port of Dover on the day the pilot scheme came into force.

The Home Office said those who arrived yesterday would be held in immigration removal centres before being returned to France.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “We have detained the first illegal migrants under our new deal before returning them to France. If you break the law to enter this country, you will face being sent back. When I say I will stop at nothing to secure our borders, I mean it.”

Britain ratified a treaty with France that means those entering the UK on a small boat can now be detained on arrival and returned across the Channel.

It is believed that about 50 migrants will be returned to France each week, with the numbers expected to climb by the end of the year.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said the “first group of people to cross the Channel were detained after their arrival at Western Jet Foil and will now be held in detention until they can be returned to France”.

She said the “ground-breaking new treaty” would “send a message to every migrant currently thinking of paying organised crime gangs to go to the UK that they will be risking their lives and throwing away their money if they get into a small boat.”

It comes after Dame Angela Eagle, a Home Office minister, admitted that the Government “doesn’t want absolutely every phone” from migrants who cross the Channel.

In January, ministers unveiled a plan to crack down on people-smuggling by allowing Border Force and immigration enforcement to compel new arrivals to hand over their devices.

The proposal, in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, was aimed at helping investigators to identify and track down people-smugglers organising Channel crossings.

It would reverse a High Court ruling last year, which said the Home Office had been unlawfully operating a blanket policy of seizing phones from people arriving on small boats.

Officials were found to not have parliamentary authority to extract data from phones or retain the devices. Doing so had meant those affected were unable to contact family members or access documentation.

The Home Office has announced that an extra £100 million ($224m) will be spent on tackling people-smuggling, as protests outside hotels housing migrants continue.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said that “the public’s patience with the asylum hotels and with the whole issue of illegal migration has snapped”.

Earlier this week, as it tried to quell mounting anger, Downing Street said police should be able to release information on the ethnicity of criminal suspects after demands for more clarity.

Small boat crossings have reached 25,000 for the year so far – a record for this point in the year. Starmer’s deal means around 800 people will be taken back by France by the end of the year.

The “one-in, one-out deal” means a similar number of asylum seekers with family connections to the UK will be accepted by Britain.