The United Kingdom government is in negotiations with France in a scheme to return illegal migrants who have crossed the channel in small boats.
In return, the British government would accept legal migrants looking for a family reunion in the United Kingdom.
The French Interior Ministry told the BBC that this would be a pilot scheme based on “one by one”, with the aim of discouraging smuggling networks.
The conservatives said that the decision to discard the Ruanda Deportation Agreement last year had eliminated an illegal immigration.
The United Kingdom Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said that the government was talking with France on migration issues, but did not comment on the possibility of a moving agreement.
She told Sky News: “I can confirm that there are discussions in the French government about how we stop this apple and dangerous trade of people who are happening throughout the Channel of La Mancha.”
The conversations with France were first reported by the Financial Times.
“The interest of France is to discourage migrants and smuggling networks to try to reach the United Kingdom from France,” said the country’s interior ministry to the BBC.
The Ministry suggested that the pilot scheme could pave the way for an agreement on the yields of migrants between the Member States of the European Union.
“It is initially based one by one: for each legal admission under family reunification, there would be a corresponding re -entry of undocumented migrants who managed to cross [the Channel]”Said a ministry spokesman.
In 2023, the previous conservative government reached an agreement to give France almost 500 million of approximately three years to go to additional officers to help migrants to cross the channel in small boats.
The conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the previous government had multiple arguments, even with France and Rwanda.
The Rwanda scheme aimed to deter the small boats of boats in the channel by sending some people who arrived illegally to the United Kingdom to the country of East Africa.
But the plan stagnated for legal challenges and the Labor discarded the scheme before any migrant was sent to Rwanda.
Badenoch said that the decision to leave the Rwanda agreement had eliminated an illegal immigration.
“It is time for the Labor to get serious and stop doing the most things for gangs that are smuggling people throughout the channel,” he said.
The deputy of Reform UK, Lee Anderson, said: “On the other hand, or negotiate commercial style agreements with respect to migrants, the approach must be to ensure and close our borders.
“Such strategy would be more effective, less expensive and much simpler.”
He added: “The priority must be to reduce the number of illegal migrants in our country, not simply replacing them.”
Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have been approached to comment.
In 2023, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he would see a return agreement throughout the EU.
But such agreement has not arrived since work won the general elections last year.
An agreement is likely to face the resistance of some European countries, such as Hungary, which has tasks of a hard line for migrants entering the country.
The United Kingdom Government has focused so much on attacking people’s letterhead gangs to demolish illegal migration, which is one of the greatest challenges of work.
Earlier this year, the Government announced a series of measures to address the smuggling of people, including a new criminal offense to endanger the lives of others in the sea with a prison period of up to five years.
The ministers have insisted that there is not a single “silver bullet” to solve the problem of illegal migration and the last scheme is only one of a series of options.
The last data of the office at home show that more than 8,180 people have crossed the La Mancha channel this year so far.
This was 31% higher than the same point last year (6,265), and 67% of this stage in 2023 (4,899).
A spokesman from the Ministry of Interior said: “The Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Interior have been clear that the United Kingdom and France must work in close collaboration to avoid dangerous crosses of small boats, partly due to the vital cooperation of the application of the law.
“We have already secured an agreement of the French to deploy a new elite unit of officers on the coast, launch a specialized intelligence unit, increase the police number and introduce new powers so that the French authorities intervene in shallow waters.
“We are intensively in our collaboration with France and other European countries that face the same challenges by exploring new and innovative measures to dismantle criminal smuggling gangs.”
