The UK will pay for 200 French officers to detain and deport asylum seekers from some of the world's most oppressive and war-ravaged regimes under a new UK-France deal aimed at reducing Channel crossings. The removal site in Dunkirk will hold people from ten nationalities, including Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam and Yemen.
According to the Home Office, these were the top ten nationalities crossing the Channel by small boat last year. Detained individuals would be deported to their home countries or to other EU countries they had passed through, officials said. The funding comes from a £162m package to trial new approaches, in addition to a three-year, £500m baseline deal with France for enforcement action on northern beaches.
The detain-and-deport approach is part of a £162m extra “payment by results” scheme, on top of the £500m baseline agreement running to March 2029. Officials claim hundreds, possibly thousands, of people will be detained under the targeting scheme. However, EU countries including France have previously struggled to deport people under the Dublin agreement.
The plans have drawn sharp criticism. Jo Cobley, chief executive of Safe Passage International, called the policy “disgraceful and unlawful”, saying it returns people to active war zones or persecution in countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran. Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said caring people across the country would be outraged that their money funds the detention of survivors of torture and war.
Home Office sources said the UK would only request deportation if the home country had been judged safe, such as Vietnam. Those who could not be sent home might be sent to third EU countries if they had already been processed and fingerprinted there. Speaking in Dunkirk, the minister defended the approach, saying the EU’s new pact on migration and asylum allows returns to safe countries of transit, and stressed that collaboration with France is critical to stopping the boats.
The Dunkirk site, with capacity for 140 people, is expected to operate by the end of 2026. First pledged by Rishi Sunak’s government in 2023, it remains under construction. A trial targeting nationalities will begin next month at a nearby removal centre in Coquelles.
