Asylum Seeker Wins Bid to Delay Deportation Under U.K.-France Treaty

The British government’s effort to reduce small-boat crossings by migrants suffered a setback on Tuesday when one of the first asylum seekers scheduled to be returned to France under a landmark treaty won a court battle to delay his deportation.

A lawyer representing the Home Office, which handles immigration, told London’s High Court that the case raised the prospect of other legal challenges by people fighting deportation under the treaty.

The asylum seeker, a 25-year-old Eritrean man, had been booked onto a flight departing Wednesday morning. A government spokesman said that, despite the ruling, the first deportations under the treaty would “take place imminently.”

Small-boat crossings have become a major political challenge for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who promised to “smash the gangs” arranging the journeys after winning last year’s general election.

More than 30,000 people have arrived by small boat so far this year, a record number, and the treaty, signed with France in July, has been central to the government’s hopes of deterring further crossings.

Under the deal, France agreed to receive an unspecified number of people who crossed the English Channel for Britain by small boat, and to send in exchange a “balanced” number of asylum seekers who applied for transfer to Britain.