They pay the people who bring them. They wait, often for moths or years for the opportunity to do so. They have to be determined.
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‘Signs of violence’: asylum seekers arriving in France injured after being deported from UK. Do Asylum seekers deserve to be kept safe from harm and injury on arrival in the UK?
(181 Posts)Is the UK in danger of losing empathy for those seeking asylum whilst their claims are being processed? French health service documents injuries including fractures and bruising after detention and return under ‘one in one out’ scheme
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The pilot scheme involves one asylum seeker who crosses the Channel in a small boat being returned to France in return for another in northern France being legally brought to the UK to claim asylum. The scheme is due to end on 1 October.
Samusocial de Paris (SSP) has been commissioned by Île-de-France’s regional health agency to provide healthcare for asylum seekers returned to France in the first eight days after their deportation from the UK, when they are accommodated in a shelter in Paris.
They have documented the cases of 90 returnees between 22 January and 7 June 2026. All are young men, mostly in their 20s and early-30s, who sought sanctuary in the UK after fleeing a variety of conflict zones including Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan. About 1,400 people have been forcibly removed to France by the Home Office since the scheme began in August 2025.
The evidence compiled by SSP has been submitted to the French Assembly’s cross-party inquiry into the impact of the Anglo-French border deals known as Le Touquet agreements. This evidence comes from their own clinical consultations with returnees and some hospital reports from those sent to A&E.
According to the report: “Consultations are revealing signs consistent with recent physical and psychological violence as well as the consequences of prolonged detention in conditions described as particularly degrading.” It states that the physical and psychological conditions documented are “explicitly linked to the implementation of the France-British agreement”.
The report adds: “The frequency and recurrence of the incidents reported by people transferred under the Franco-British agreement appear particularly worrying.”
SSP recommends that a mechanism should be established to collect information on allegations of mistreatment by the British authorities that can be sent to the UK. It also suggests reporting this issue to the French prosecutor under article 40 of the French code of criminal procedure.
Nihal Osman, a programme coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières, which also provides health support for this group of returnees, said: “This one in one out agreement is a machine for psychological destruction. The deeply concerning physical injuries sustained whilst in detention in the United Kingdom, which we have documented among those deported, must be viewed in the light of a serious psychological deterioration.”
The UK Home Office and the company Mitie, which provides the guards for the asylum seekers, have been approached for comment.
It stands to reason that anyone who pays that sum plus risks their life on a small boat crossing across the channel must be determined.
Any suggestions, other than measures already in place, sundowngirl, how to stop the determined small boat asylum seekers coming?
PS they wait for months, not moths!
Lemonjam - There is no deterrent - stop the 'pull' factor and they will not be so keen to come.
A 'pull factor' of gaining asylum and safety in the UK and other safe countries is indeed what motivates asylum seekers - on that we agree. Hardly likely to change either whilst family, wars etc continue.
famine...
sundowngirl
Lemonjam - There is no deterrent - stop the 'pull' factor and they will not be so keen to come.
That’s what French Ministers keep saying to us….
Complex to remove or reduce the 'pull' factors- no simple, quick, workable, legal solution either.
I disagree, it would be easy for politicians to change the pull factor for asylum seekers, laws aren’t religious tablets of stone.
Labour is the only party so far that has made progress- or at least more progress than Conservative Party.
Have not heard any other party with any better solutions to date. Not sure it would be good for Britain to pull out of or breach international maritime laws etc
Well, there’s a surprise…..🙄
It was a time limited pilot scheme. Cost much less than the £700 million plus Rwanda scheme that also failed.
Any suggestions for stopping the pull factors?
No suggestions yet- not a surprise 😊.
Not easy for politicians to stop the pull factors for asylum seekers after all.
The Rwanda scheme didn't fail - it was scrapped on day 1 by the LP and never given a chance. Unlike the useless one in one out scheme pilot
It failed to deport one single asylum seeker- that failure speaks for itself!
Again it didn't fail, it was scrapped before it was allowed to begin. It was never given a chance to work
The very first deportation flight was grounded at the last minute in June 2022 due to an interim injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Although the Conservative government passed the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 to override the courts, political delays and the snap July 2024 election meant time ran out before a single operational removal flight could successfully launch
One of the reasons we need to leave the EHCR!
I’m surprised to see you mourning a scheme which cost £150,000 per individual, and included 5 years accommodation costs and living expenses for each one sundowngirl. I thought you had said you favoured the put them all back on the boat and send them back to France approach?
The Conservative government signed the Rwanda Migration and economic Development partnership Agreement in April 2022 under Boris Johnson and Priti Patel.
From then on the Conservative government failed to deport one single asylum seeker.
The UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled the Rwanda policy unlawful in November 2023- some 7 months before the Labour Party won the GE! £hundreds of thousands spent on legal costs aside from policy cost and money given to Rwanda. The Rwanda government was laughing all the way to the bank.
Rwanda scheme was ruled unlawful and a failure- hard to argue otherwise. Its failure was nothing to do with the new government.
Why do you think Sunak called a GE before he needed to?
Passing an Act to rule Rwanda safe doesn't actually make the country safe! That is what's called a "legislative fiction". Neither could this Act override intentional obligations or completely block challenges related to individual circumstances under international legal frameworks as the C government found out.
Even if in cloud cuckoo land they managed to get over all those obstacles, over how ever many years, the scheme was unfordable to scale up anyway and Rwanda lacked never ending capacity over successive years. .
The electorate decided...
Thanks LemonJam.
Rwanda seems safe enough now for the US and some EU countries to send some of their migrants to.
Europe has not sent any migrants to Rwanda, and the scheme under consideration by five EU countries is different to the UK’s plan to send people who were unauthorised arrivals there. The scheme they are looking at is for failed asylum seekers.
The USA has a deal for 250 migrants, whose countries of origin have refused to take them back, they were described by Rubio as ‘scum’. I sincerely hope the UK would offer a more humanitarian approach
sundowngirl
Rwanda seems safe enough now for the US and some EU countries to send some of their migrants to.
Really! Which EU countries or indeed any world countries, including US, have been able to legally deem Rwanda "safe"?
Are you aware of how many asylum seekers each of those countries sent, at what cost per person and what court litigation is on going rearguing the legitimacy of transfers to Rwanda and whether it is a safe country? Do you personally think Rwanda is a safe country sundowngirl?
1) UK Rwanda scheme scrapped July 2024 as despite huge costs not one compulsory removal achieved.
2) Israel ran a limited volunteer departure programme 2015 to 2018 -scrapped entirely by 2019.
3) Denmark, explored, proposed- but an active transfer agreement stalled- no agreement achieved, no asylum seekers sent.
4) The Trump administration reached a small agreement to deport some migrants, up to 250, to Rwanda and some transfers took place last year. Many of the transferred migrants were sent back to their home nations at further tax payer expense. According to a Congressional investigation it was reported the Trump administration paid Rwanda $7.5 million plus an additional estimated 601,864 in flight costs to accept *just 7 people. The report outlined many red flags in this scheme and concern that the Trump administration circumvented immigration law. Related Court litigation with ICE/plus administration is ongoing. Plus ofcourse mid term elections due in November.
The scheme does still technically exist I believe, the USA government has no interest in whether countries migrants are returned to are deemed safe, removing them from the USA is the only concern, regardless of cost. The justice system there seems fully occupied in picking up the pieces after the event.
Casdon
Millions of boats enter UK harbours every year, I don’t know how it would be possible to check every one before anybody disembarks.
Most private craft still raise the Q flag ( customs and Quarantine) and call up the coastguard.
Most sailors know that you will wait awhile for them to arrive.
What surprises me is that they went into a harbour 🤷♀️
There are thousands of creeks and saltings that they could have gone into and nobody would have known.
Having said that, we brought a boat back to the uk ( after Brexit) raised the flag. Called up coastguard, nobody answered.
It was a large private vessel. We could have had over 50 people aboard.
Once again it’s down to money and numbers.
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