The Home Office has announced a first wave of detentions of small boat arrivals set to be returned to France, but human rights groups have voiced their outrage
Human rights groups have voiced their outrage after a first wave of small boat detentions for return to France were announced.
Campaigners have hinted they are weighing up a legal challenge over the new returns agreement – which will see people who made the dangerous Channel crossing kicked out. The Home Office said those taken into detention after arriving in Kent yesterday are expected to be sent back to France within a fortnight.
In exchange people with a legitimate case to settle in the UK – who have never attempted a small crossing – will be admitted in their place. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper branded the first wave of detentions an “important step forward”. It comes after Keir Starmer hails a major UK-France deal to tackle Channel small boat crossings.
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But Steve Smith, chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais said the group is “keeping all our options open” on challenging the scheme. He said: “This grubby deal is all about permanently denying people the right to sanctuary. Offering a safe route to one person who has a strong case to be offered protection, while denying somebody else, who may have an equally strong case, is abhorrent.
“It must be challenged, and we are keeping all our options open to do so.” And Kolbassia Haoussou, director of survivor leadership at Freedom from Torture said: “Locking people up who’ve endured the unimaginable horror of torture will only reopen deep psychological wounds and disrupt the often already long and difficult road to recovery.
“Most people in the UK are caring and they believe in the importance of providing protection to people fleeing war and torture. But while this pilot offers a pathway to safety for some, it relies on the brutal mass detention of others.”
The Home Office told The Mirror that an application scheme for people who want to travel via a new safe route from France would be opened on Thursday. The Government hopes that the new agreement with France, which was struck between Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in July, will deter people from putting their lives in the hands of smuggling gangs.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: “People are being unjustly punished simply for exercising their right to seek asylum in the UK – through the only route left open to them.
“Even if the Government fails to block their claims or send them back to France, they will still endure needless detention and harm to their mental health. The fear, isolation, and uncertainty are especially harrowing for people who have already suffered serious abuse and trauma during their journeys and in the countries they’ve fled.”
He added: “Rather than offering protection to those fleeing war and persecution, the UK is shamefully using them as political pawns in a wider deterrence strategy. This reckless policy not only ignores the root causes of migration but risks pushing smugglers toward more dangerous and hidden routes.
“All of this is done under a deeply flawed deal with France – a deal that sacrifices human lives for political convenience.”
More than 25,000 people have made the dangerous journey so far this year. In 2024 at least 78 people, including children, died trying to reach the UK.
Ms Cooper said: “Yesterday, under the terms of this groundbreaking new treaty, the first group of people to cross the Channel were detained after their arrival at Western Jet Foil (in Kent) and will now be held in detention until they can be returned to France. That sends 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.
“No one should be making this illegal and dangerous journey that undermines our border security and lines the pockets of the criminal gangs.” The Government claims that the returns agreement – the first with mainland Europe since Brexit – is a breakthrough in its efforts to tackle smuggling gangs.
In a statment the Home Office said: “Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and Home Office officials will continue to work round the clock over the coming weeks to identify and detain individuals under the treaty, and undertake the necessary processes to prepare them for their return to France.”
Under the agreement, which was reached during a UK-France summit in July, those allowed into the UK will be checked in advance for signs they could pose a security threat.
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