Asylum Seekers Still Sent to France Weeks After UK Scheme Ended

Asylum seekers are still being put on planes to France weeks after the UK's controversial 'one in, one out' scheme ended, it has emerged. The Home Office is understood to still be detaining dozens of people, and one group was forcibly removed this week.

The scheme was announced in July 2025 by French President Emmanuel Macron and then UK prime minister Keir Starmer. It aimed to deter small boats crossing the Channel to the UK from northern France: some asylum seekers arriving that way would be forcibly returned to France, while a similar number of people in northern France would be brought legally to the UK.

The scheme ended on 1 October, but the Home Office is understood to still be detaining dozens of people. Officials chartered a plane to France on Wednesday for a group thought to have arrived in the UK on small boats before the scheme ended. A second flight is scheduled for 17 November.

Home Office sources said returns of the remainder of the 'one in, one out' cohort were continuing after the deal had ended. According to freedom of information data, almost one-third of the scheme's deportation flights — seven out of 23 — were cancelled between July and September this year, more than double the total of cancelled deportation flights to France in the first six months of 2026.

Emma Ginn, director of Medical Justice, said asylum seekers are still being held in detention centres in preparation for forced removal to France. She said that even though the scheme has been abandoned, vulnerable people still held under its powers continue to suffer immensely, with the severe harm known to be caused by immigration detention compounded by the prospect of imminent return to France, where many have reported experiencing violence and abuse at the hands of smugglers.

The scheme has been controversial because it does not appear to have had the intended deterrent effect on small boat crossings. Many asylum seekers have reported being left homeless or abused by smugglers, and some were told they would be sent back to other EU countries they had passed through on their journeys to the UK.

Small boat crossings have fallen by approximately 40% so far this year compared with the same period last year, but there has been a similar level of reduction in irregular migration to Europe over the same period. Home Office data showed that after no crossings for three weeks, 263 people crossed in three boats on Thursday.

At least seven asylum seekers returned to France are understood to have come back to the UK since 1 October, with reports of several more waiting in northern France to cross back in the next few days when a favourable weather window is forecast.

Two asylum seekers who were sent to France during the scheme and have returned to the UK since 1 October, and whose asylum claims are now being processed in the UK, have been interviewed. The first is Syrian and the second Iranian, and both returned just days after the scheme finished.

The Syrian man said the Home Office first put him back in detention and said it was looking for a safe third country to deport him to, but as there was not one, he was released and his claim is now being considered in the UK; he said he is very relieved to no longer be locked up and to be safe in the UK. The Iranian man said he had been planning to return to the UK for several months after being abused by smugglers in France; he said he was tortured and beaten by the smugglers and was too afraid to go outside in France.

Maddie Harris of Humans for Rights Network questioned the purpose of the scheme. She said hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money has been transferred to the French government, while men, women and children are teargassed and beaten on the beaches and subjected to repetitive, violent evictions from living sites, yet people still cross to the UK. The money has done nothing but cause harm, she said, and the government fails to acknowledge the most obvious policy to prevent dangerous crossings: accessible safe routes for all to claim asylum in the UK.

According to evidence the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, gave to a recent session of parliament's cross-party home affairs committee, removing people to France has cost at least £78m. Some who were sent to France returned to the UK and were then returned to France a second time, incurring further cost. One asylum seeker now in the area known as the 'Jungle' in Dunkirk, a camp where asylum seekers pitch tents while waiting to cross the Channel, said at least five or six people from the scheme are waiting there to cross back to the UK, and the place is so full of people waiting to cross that there is no space to lie down and sleep.