The UK and France have been compelled to revise their “one in, one out” arrangement amid growing worries about the volume of individuals returning to Britain after being deported to continental Europe.
Under the initial treaty, individuals who arrived in the UK via small boats were meant to be sent back to France. However, criminal smuggling groups have reportedly exploited the system by transporting some of those previously returned to France back into Britain using lorries.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has reached an agreement with her French counterpart to modify the treaty, allowing migrants previously deported under the “one in, one out” arrangement who later return to the UK by lorry to be sent back to France once again.
According to documents first reported by The Times, the Home Office has introduced a new designation for asylum seekers referred to as “returnee cases” in order to close the identified loophole.
Since the treaty came into force on 6 August last year, the UK has returned 921 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats to France, accounting for 3.5% of total arrivals over the same period.
The UK has, in the same period, taken in 896 asylum seekers from France under the terms of the reciprocal agreement.
The treaty provides that the UK is permitted to return irregular Channel migrants to France, in exchange for accepting an equivalent number of asylum seekers from French authorities.
Reports indicate that, during a two-week span in March, at least four people who had been removed under the scheme managed to return to the UK by travelling in lorries, while another two similar cases were recorded in the autumn.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez have agreed that the treaty will now cover any migrant who re-enters the UK illegally, no matter how they arrive.
In a letter to Nuñez, Mahmood said: “Following our recent meeting which allowed us to observe the quality of the cooperation established under the agreement … I wish to propose an addition to the objectives of the agreement, explicitly adding the objective of deterring clandestine returns to the UK by individuals previously transferred to France under the agreement.”
Migrants who were sent back to France under the arrangement and later returned to the UK told The Guardian that traffickers know the Paris shelter where returnees are usually housed in their initial days after being deported.
“They caught me near the shelter and sent me back to UK by force in a lorry. The smugglers have guns, they control everything, we have to try to stay alive.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron signed what they described as a “groundbreaking” agreement last July, referred to as the “one in, one out” deal.
The agreement sets out that migrants reaching the UK in small boats are sent back to France, in exchange for France transferring an equal number of asylum seekers who have not crossed the Channel into Britain through authorised routes.
The two leaders initially agreed to run the arrangement as a pilot programme scheduled to conclude on 11 June. However, both countries have now decided to extend the scheme through to 1 October.
So far this year, Channel crossings have fallen by about a third compared with the same timeframe last year, though authorities suggest that favourable weather conditions may partly explain the reduction.
In April, Britain and France finalised a £662m deal designed to reduce migrant crossings of the English Channel.
According to a Home Office spokesperson, the UK has already removed more than 900 people who entered the country illegally under its returns deal with France. The official also noted that this figure contributes to nearly 70,000 migrant returns recorded between July 2024 and 31 March 2026, marking a 41% rise compared with the preceding 21 months.
