An Iranian man sent back to France under the “one in, one out” scheme has returned to the UK on a small boat, the Guardian has learned.
The man, who wants to claim asylum in the UK, and has spoken to the Guardian since coming back, is being held in a UK immigration detention centre and claims to be a victim of modern slavery at the hands of smugglers in northern France.
Home Office sources have confirmed that one person sent to France under the UK-France treaty – which allows people who cross the Channel to Britain in small boats to be sent back in exchange for bringing the same number in France to the UK via a legal route – is now in the UK.
The revelation emerged on the same day that the number of people to have crossed the Channel this year exceeded the total for 2024.
Last year 36,816 people arrived in the UK via small boats, while as of Wednesday the figure for 2025 stood at 36,886 – 70 more than last year with two months to go.
“If I had felt that France was safe for me I would never have returned to the UK,” the man claimed.
He told the Guardian: “When we were returned to France we were taken to a shelter in Paris. I didn’t dare to go out because I was afraid for my life. The smugglers are very dangerous. They always carry weapons and knives. I fell into the trap of a human trafficking network in the forests of France before I crossed to the UK from France the first time.
“They took me like a worthless object, forced me to work, abused me, and threatened me with a gun and told me I would be killed if I made the slightest protest.
“Every day and every night I was filled with terror and stress. Every day I live in fear and anxiety, every loud noise, every shadow, every strange face scares me.
“When I reached UK the first time and Home Office asked what had happened to me I was crying and couldn’t speak about this because of shame.”
The organisation Humans For Rights Network said it had received many testimonies from asylum seekers now in the UK of exploitation by smugglers in northern France.
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said on X: “Does that mean we now have to take two people from France to return him? This Labour government is in total chaos: no backbone, no plan and too weak to take the tough decisions to secure our borders.”
A spokesperson for the Centre for Migration Control told GB News that “the winners will be the people smugglers”. Nigel Farage said it showed Starmer’s “one in, one out” policy was a “total abject failure”.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, said Labour had to “back up their big promises with actions”.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said the last Tory government had left “our borders in crisis, and we are still living with the consequences. These figures are shameful, the British people deserve better”.
She said the Labour government had detained and removed more than 35,000 people staying illegally in the UK, but added: “It is clear we must go further and faster – removing more of those here illegally, and stopping migrants from making small boat crossings in the first place.”
Maddie Harris, the founder and director of Humans For Rights Network, has recently visited asylum seekers returned to France under the “one in, one out” scheme.
She said: “We regularly hear from people who have spent time in France, passing through Dunkirk and Calais to get to the UK, that they have witnessed or experienced violence and exploitation perpetrated by smugglers and traffickers. This includes people being forced or coerced into steering a boat, the use of physical violence, servitude, beatings, stabbings and sexual violence.
“The men we have spoken to post their removal to France under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme have spoken of their horror to find themselves back in a country where they do not feel safe.
“They raised concerns about the many people who have claimed asylum in France who are now destitute and living on the streets.”
Some of the people returned to France have received notification that their fingerprints have been found to have been taken previously in another EU country, as part of the EU’s so-called Dublin scheme, under which the first EU member state where an asylum seeker arrives is usually responsible for their asylum claim.
On Sunday the Home Office issued a statement saying that 16 small boat arrivals had been returned to France last week in the largest group flight yet, bringing the total number of returns to 42. So far, 23 asylum seekers have been brought to the UK under the “one in, one out” treaty.
France’s interior ministry denied that conditions for asylum seekers returned to France were difficult and said returnees were being accommodated while assessed and that those who agreed to voluntary go back to their home country were taken to a return preparation centre.
A spokesperson for the ministry said: “France will implement ‘Dublin’ transfers – removal of asylum seekers to the European Union country where they submitted their initial application – within the overall framework of its migration relations with other member states, in accordance with community law.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will not accept any abuse of our borders, and we will do everything in our power to remove those without the legal right to be here. Individuals who are returned under the pilot and subsequently attempt to re-enter the UK illegally will be removed.”
