LONDON — A pilot program between the U.K. and France that aimed to curb the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has been scrapped, Britain’s government said Wednesday.
In a statement, the Home Office said the “one in, one out” deal is “no longer processing new cases.”
Under the plan, people who arrived in the U.K. after making the dangerous crossing across the channel could be detained and returned to France in exchange for an equivalent number of asylum seekers who applied through a safe and legal route.
As part of the deal, about 1,500 individuals have returned to France while a tad fewer have been transferred to the U.K. The deal was intended to last three years though there was a clause allowing the parties to end it earlier.
“We continue to work with France to relentlessly tackle small boat crossings, and we’ve made real progress,” the Home Office said in a statement.
Though the program is no longer active, the Home Office said deportation flights will continue in the coming weeks for those who have already been detained.
The backdrop currently is very different from last year. The number of people making the crossing has fallen sharply this year to a five-year low for a variety of reasons, including increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France. So far this year, around 19,000 people have made the crossing, down about 40% in the same period last year.
The danger of crossings was illustrated Monday when a 10-year-old child and two women died, apparently trampled to death on a boat packed with more than 100 people.
Cooperation on stopping the boats stalled after the U.K.’s acrimonious split from the European Union in 2020, but in the last few years the U.K. and France have struck several agreements to get a handle on the issue.
Small boat crossings have become a potent political issue in the U.K. in recent years. Anger at the seeming inability of successive governments to deal with the issue has been behind a series of demonstrations and riots and has fueled the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party.
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