A girl is carried on a man's shoulders as migrants wade into the sea to try and board a dinghy to cross the English Channel on August 25 in Gravelines, France. Photo / Getty Images
A girl is carried on a man's shoulders as migrants wade into the sea to try and board a dinghy to cross the English Channel on August 25 in Gravelines, France. Photo / Getty Images
The first deportation of a Channel migrant under British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal with France was cancelled at the last minute.
The Telegraph understands that one migrant was due to be flown from Heathrow to Paris on an Air France passenger flight today butthe flight was postponed amid protests by charities and threats of legal action.
The Home Office is understood to be planning to put him on another flight tomorrow, with the French authorities preparing to accommodate him in a hotel in Roissy-en-France, in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris.
The delay is a blow for Starmer as he seeks to get the new deal off the ground to act as a deterrent to further Channel crossings.
More than 31,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in 2025, the highest number at this point since the first arrivals in 2018.
British and French charities have mounted a campaign to bombard Air France with phone calls, emails and social media messages urging them “not to agree to collaborate with the Interior Ministry and not to agree to deport these people on these flights”.
How many smuggler boats have crossed the Channel so far this year?
Cumulative small-vessel crossings. Photo / Home Office
A spokesman for Auberge des Migrants, a charity that supports migrants in northern France, said: “There were a lot of people who responded to this campaign and agreed to send emails asking for this collaboration with the Government to be stopped”.
Lawyers are also advising many of the 90 Channel migrants who have been detained since the beginning of August ready for their enforced return to France.
The Home Office has to give “generous” time extensions to the migrants to take legal advice on challenging their deportation as a result of a ruling against the Tory Government’s thwarted Rwanda deportation scheme.
Lawyers said this suggested the legal process was taking longer than anticipated by the Government.
Instead of a single charter flight carrying a significant group of migrants, the Home Office has opted for daily commercial flights of smaller numbers.
The French authorities said they had been told to expect fewer than 10 people per flight and no more than two or three on the first passenger jet flown out of the UK.
It is understood the French would have preferred larger numbers on a smaller number of flights.
‘Voluntary return assistance’
Although the first migrant is due to be put up in a hotel on arrival, officials said the plan was for them to be placed in a reception centre from which they will be free to come and go.
Didier Leschi, director-general of the French office for immigration and integration, said the migrants could “try again” to cross to the United Kingdom but “if they get caught, they’ll be brought back or deported”.
He said they would be encouraged to accept “voluntary return assistance” to go back to their home countries. Those who refused this and were not eligible for asylum may be subject to an obligation to leave France, he added.
Some 100 migrants were detained on arrival at the start of August before their names and details were passed to the French for approval.
Most are understood to be from countries with high asylum grant rates but also those accounting for the highest number of crossings including Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan.
Lawyers believe their cases could be challenged under their rights to a family life under article eight of the European Convention of Human Rights if they have relatives in the UK. Cases could be lodged on the grounds that they have been trafficked or suffer mental ill health.
As part of the agreement, a similar number of asylum seekers from France will come to the UK. The first flight into Britain is scheduled for the weekend, the Telegraph understands.
Although the initial numbers returned in the pilot scheme are small, both Starmer and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, want to scale it up to act as a deterrent to show migrants seeking to make the dangerous crossing that it is not worthwhile.
There is, however, a break clause which either side can activate. It is also only scheduled to last for a year, at which point both countries have to decide whether to extend it.
A French Interior Ministry source told French media: “We will be able to terminate the agreement if we do not see any benefit in it”.
They emphasised “the still very experimental nature of this agreement”.
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