❓WHAT HAPPENED: A boat migrant deported from Britain to France under a contentious “one out, one in” deal with the French government has returned to Britain on another small boat.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Britain’s Home Office, French authorities, and illegal immigrants.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The returns deal was announced earlier this year, with the latest developments reported this week in Britain and France.
💬KEY QUOTE: “If I had felt that France was safe for me, I would never have returned to the UK.” – Anonymous migrant
🎯IMPACT: The migrant’s return raises further questions about the efficacy of the “one out, one in” deal, which was already under fire for covering only a small number of migrants while illegal crossings have remained in the thousands.
A boat migrant deported to France under a new “one out, one in” deal between the British and French governments has reportedly returned to Britain on another small boat.
Britain’s Home Office—roughly equivalent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—states that 42 migrants have been returned to France as part of this arrangement, which was introduced earlier this year by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. Despite the fact that it entails Britain taking a migrant from France for every boat migrant that is returned, it is supposed to deter boat migrant crossings by raising the possibility that such journeys will be wasted. However, thousands of boat migrants have crossed since it was introduced, indicating that it is not working.
Now, one migrant from the initial group of deportees has already returned, claiming that France—a First-World European Union (EU) and NATO member state—is unsafe. He told the left-wing Guardian newspaper, “If I had felt that France was safe for me, I would never have returned to the UK.”
This comes as Prime Minister Starmer, of the leftist Labour Party, is hosting a summit on illegal immigration with other European leaders. A government spokesman for his government attempted to defend the “one out, one in” deal, stating: “We’ve been clear about the arrangement with France, that this is the beginning of a landmark scheme which is not, in itself, a silver bullet.”
Image by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street.
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