Almost 50 asylum seekers deported using the “one in one out” scheme have been recorded as returning to the UK a second time, the Guardian has learned.
In addition to the returnees detained by the Home Office, an unknown number are believed to have arrived in the UK undetected.
The scheme, which began last September, allows the UK government to return people arriving on small boats to France, in exchange for a similar number of asylum seekers being brought to the UK legally. The aim is to deter asylum seekers from crossing the Channel in small boats.
The Guardian previously revealed that the first asylum seeker who returned to the UK a second time did so last October, a few weeks after being forcibly returned to France. But until now the number of people returning to the UK after forced return was not known.
So far this year small boat crossings have reduced by about 43%. This fall is likely to be due to a variety of factors, including bad weather and a reduction in migrants arriving in Europe overall by about a third, as well as efforts by UK and French authorities to disrupt people smugglers.
The rationale for sending a proportion of small boat arrivals back to France is that France is a safe country. Asylum seekers who have subsequently returned to the UK have argued that they faced threats from people smugglers in France, or feared being returned by French authorities to their home countries or to countries they passed through.
About 4% of small boat arrivals have been returned to France so far under the “one in one out” deal.
According to the Home Office, as of 30 June 2026, there were 1,117 individuals transferred to the UK and 1,087 individuals returned to France under “one in one out”. Officials say the treaty between UK and France has been amended so that second-time returnees to the UK will be once again returned to France.
One asylum seeker who returned to the UK a second time in a lorry was eventually returned to France after spending five months in detention. He said he was accommodated for only a few days by French authorities. “There is nowhere for asylum seekers to go and be safe and have peace in Europe,” he said. “I’m sleeping on the streets of Paris because France wants to send me back to Bulgaria where I was fingerprinted. I was better off in a UK detention centre.”
Griff Ferris, of Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “People fleeing war, persecution and climate destruction are forced to take incredibly dangerous routes to cross the Channel and get to the UK because there is no other way. We must let everyone access the same safe routes to travel that are open to so many, like the daily ferries between Calais and Dover.”
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A Home Office spokesperson said: “Anyone looking to return to the UK after being removed under the UK-France agreement is wasting their time and money – and will be removed again. Under our payment by results returns agreement with France, we have removed more than 1,000 illegal migrants from British soil.
“Hundreds of enforcement actions, including arrests, investigations, and sanctions have been pursued against migrant smuggling networks since the election, and we’ve returned or removed almost 70,000 illegal migrants.”
France’s interior ministry has been approached for comment.
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