Shabana Mahmood’s ‘one in, one out’ deal with France has been dealt a blow after she lost a High Court appeal by Channel migrants who claimed their deportations were unlawful. The Telegraph has the story.
Five migrants who claimed to be victims of trafficking argued that a change in the rules barring them from challenging their deportations was illegal.
The Home Secretary introduced the change in policy to remove the right of migrants to appeal against rulings that deem them not to be victims of trafficking, paving the way for them to be deported.
As part of the UK-France agreement, which came into force last August, people who arrive by small boat can be detained and returned to France in exchange for an equivalent number of people who apply through a safe and legal route.
However, the High Court has backed the appeal by the migrants, whose barrister argued that their fundamental rights could not be “sacrificed for the sake of expediency and speed of decision-making or a desire to accelerate removals”.
Since the treaty came into effect on August 6th, 921 small boat migrants have been deported to France, which is 3.5% of all such arrivals in the same period. The UK has accepted 896 asylum seekers from France under the reciprocal deal.
Mahmood changed the rules last September amid concerns that migrants appealing against the rejection of their claims to be trafficking victims could delay or halt their deportations under the deal.
The changes removed the right of Channel migrants to request that a rejection of their claim to be trafficking victims should be reconsidered if they were being removed to a country such as France, which was a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking.
However, the High Court found that Channel migrants arriving in the UK were often too malnourished, sleep-deprived and lacked the English language skills to present evidence to support their claims to be trafficking victims.
This meant critical evidence to support their cases, such as medical examinations and legal reports, often might not emerge for weeks, despite their trafficking claims normally being decided within five days.
The court ruled that this increased the chances that many cases in which a migrant might be a genuine victim of trafficking would not be identified
As a result Mr Justice Sheldon, the High Court judge, decided that the Home Secretary’s amendment to the guidance was unlawful and had a “negative impact” on some of the migrants in the case.
However, he ruled that most of the Home Office decisions – including certifying their asylum claims as clearly unfounded and declaring protection claims as inadmissible – were found to have been lawfully made.
Mahmood will appeal the High Court decision, which is likely to prevent any immediate impact on the one in, one out deal until a final judgment is delivered.
If the Home Office loses the case, it could encourage more Channel migrants to claim to be victims of trafficking in an attempt to delay or halt their deportations.
Almost one in five Channel migrants lodged modern slavery or trafficking claims last year.
Worth reading in full.
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Great photo of burly French Gendarmes wondering why they were forced to be inspected by a tiny, dumpy, bustling, Pakistani Muslim Marxist Harpy with a Skeletal Smile, chosen by Marxist Labour to represent the British People on the world stage.
History will remember her chiefly for lying down on the floor in Sainsburys with other Palestinian Activist Traitors to shut the business down for links to Israel, and making speeches boasting about it.
I don’t remember Macron ever choosing a Pakistani Muslim for a minister’s post in the French government, do you? Why is that?
The illegals themselves did not bring the claim, so which charity/NGO brought it for them with taxpayers’ money?
Now that is the most important question!
So ones we wanted gone stay and the ones that were swapped stay as well. By design.
Who paid for their legal counsel, oh we did!
Well Paki Mahmood’s scheme was like a piss in the ocean so it makes no difference to the hordes already here.
Imagine the doctor telling you: “I’m afraid you have cancer, but I can deal with that if you’re prepared to have Alzheimer’s in return.”
“Can’t you just get rid of my illness?”
“Oh, no. Once you have an unwanted condition you can’t just get rid of it. You can only swap it for another.”
Not “migrants” – illegal immigrants.
Typical sloppy journalism. At least they weren’t referred to as “asylum seekers”.
Wasn’t Kafka supposed to be fiction?
The “government” is useless.
All quite intentional I am sure. If they were serious they would have taken proper advice, understood they might lose a court case and simply changed the law. They have a huge majority.
I don’t think the Labour backbenchers would vote to change the law, they’re all of very little brain.
I don’t believe for one minute that the government actually wants to reduce immigration, just to make the right noises
I agree.
They could just change the law. They wanted this outcome to happen. They just needed to be seen to be doing something.
They need to be detained, locked in, not free to wander rape and steal, and no fucking perks, until they are deported.
What is wrong with these people?
And held in the new Falklands detention centre where there are armed guards controlling access to the islet where the centre is located. They can try to swim away but will – hopefully – freeze to death in the water. Of course should they express a desire to return to their home country they can leave.
Are you talking about Mr Justice Sheldon?