An Eritrean man can be deported to France under the government’s ‘one in, one out’ scheme, a judge has ruled.
It’s the second similar case to come before the High Court this week.
In the first, separate case, another man’s deportation was temporarily blocked. Whereas, the government has won the right to return the man at the centre of this legal challenge to France.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is from Eritrea and arrived in the UK last month after crossing the English Channel on a small boat. He was allegedly forced to flee his home country in 2019 because of forced conscription, and passed through Ethiopia, South Sudan, Libya and France, before entering the UK.
Lawyers acting for the migrant in today’s case said he is due to be deported at 6.15am on Friday morning, but argued he had a “number of different medical needs” and that he has been a “victim of trafficking”.
Sonaili Naik KC, representing the migrant, also told the High Court that her client’s case had been rushed.
She said: “They have just simply expedited a decision, for the purposes of trying to rush to maintain a removal.”
The judge who ruled on this case was also the one who issued the temporary block preventing the other migrant from being deported on Tuesday night, in a move the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called “intolerable” and vowed to “fight”.
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Is ‘one in one out’ scheme actually a deterrent?
Mr Justice Sheldon’s ruling in that case led to the Home Office revising its policy on reconsidering modern slavery decisions, so that anyone removed to a safe country who wants to appeal against a National Referral Mechanism (NRM) decision – which identifies and assesses victims of slavery and human trafficking – will now be unable to do so.
Instead, they can now appeal via judicial review from another country, such as France.
This then change came to play a role in this separate case today.
Ms Naik told the High Court: “The secretary of state [Ms Mahmood] has today come to this court to say, without notice to the claimant, that the procedures in France are fine, it is all safe, no problems, the trafficking claims will be dealt with.
“Our prima facie case is that the secretary of state needs assurances from France that that is the case, that non-French nationals trafficked in Libya will have access to the NRM there.”
But Sian Reeves, for the Home Office, responded that there was “no arguable public law error” in the way Ms Mahmood altered the policy, given that “she had ample evidence”.
The government lawyer added that there was “no serious issue to be tried” as the migrant’s alleged “trafficking claim can be investigated in France”. She insisted to the court that his deportation could go ahead, as his “rights are protected” there.
Mr Sheldon ruled this evening that he agreed with government lawyers that there was “no serious issue to be tried in this case”.
He added that there is “significant public interest in favour of the claimant’s removal”.
The High Court judge also said the migrant had given two very different accounts of being trafficked, meaning that “his credibility was severely damaged” and his allegations “could not reasonably be believed”.
Mr Sheldon concluded that the Home Office had “sufficient information” to deport the man and that it was “reasonable” to conclude that “further information would not make any material difference”.
Read more:
How does the UK-France migrants deal work?
Has anybody been successfully deported under the scheme yet?
Yes. Earlier in the day, a man who illegally crossed the English Channel last month became the first person to be deported under the terms of the government’s “one in, one out” migrant return deal with France.
The Home Office confirmed the man was sent back to France on a commercial flight at 6.15am this morning.
His departure follows efforts to deport an Eritrean man on Wednesday morning being blocked the night before by Mr Sheldon.
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The agreement, which was signed in July, saw migrants first detained on 6 August, and they will now be flown back to the continent.
The department has said further deportation flights are due later this week and into next week.
The UK-France deal was signed in July and saw the first migrants detained in the UK to await deportation in August.
It allows the UK to send back a migrant who crosses the Channel illegally in exchange for accepting the same number of migrants in France who have a valid asylum claim.
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