‘One In, One Out’: Six months on, migrants still risk the Channel

“T’as pas une clope? Have you got a smoke?” Adam asks, walking from table to table at an outdoor bar in Butte aux Cailles, central Paris.

Adam is a refugee from Darfur (South Sudan) who has lived in Paris for the past six years. Every day as night falls, he makes his way around crowded terraces in the French capital, hoping to get a few cigarettes, something to eat, or just to make new friends.

Adam arrived in France in 2019 after a journey through Libya and across Europe that he describes as violent and unpredictable. Yet, Paris is not his final destination: “I want to go to England,” Adam says, determined to use any means necessary.

Around 40,000 people cross the Channel illegally into the UK every year. With the rise of the far-right Reform party, illegal immigration has become the most emotive and politically sensitive issue facing successive governments, Conservative and Labour.

Six months after Britain and France unveiled a new migration deal designed to prevent people like Adam from crossing the Channel in small boats, research suggests the policy has done little to change that resolve.

A deal between London and Paris

During French President Macron’s state visit to London in July 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a new deal between France and Britain to tackle illegal migration through the Channel.

The new agreement – dubbed the ‘one in, one out’ policy – is aimed at ensuring that people who arrive in the UK from across the Channel in small boats can be swiftly returned to France. In exchange, it allows some individuals to legally move from France to the UK, particularly if they have relatives already residing there.

Adam has no family in Paris, but has cousins in England, and hopes to be among those selected for the scheme. Failing that, he is ready to board a small boat and cross illegally. Like many migrants coming from Africa, he has already experienced dealing with people-smugglers on his journey from Darfur.

Little evidence of deterrent effect

As of late December 2025, by the UK government’s own figures, close to 200 people had been returned to France under the new deal. Researchers believe the number has since passed that threshold, though official data remains limited.

A Home Office spokesperson called the agreement “the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in modern times,” asserting that the policy is effective in impeding dangerous crossings and people-smuggling networks.

Prime Minister Starmer described the scheme as “groundbreaking”, and France’s President Macron hailed the agreement as a “major deterrent”.

Despite this, researchers remain unconvinced.

“There's no firm evidence that this has had a material deterrent effect,” says Dr Peter Walsh, Senior Researcher at the Oxford Migration Observatory.

“Last year, we were expecting a record year in terms of small boat arrivals. We did not see as many crossings in October or November, but that isn't good enough evidence,” Walsh explains, warning against drawing firm conclusions about the scheme.

Indeed, far from marking a decisive break, Migration Watch UK data placed 2025 as the second-highest year overall for Channel crossings, exceeded only by the 2022 peak.

The new policy comes after years of mounting political pressure over Channel crossings, which have become one of the most visible and contentious symbols of irregular migration.

Since the early 2000s, British and French governments have invested heavily in border policing, surveillance technology and patrols, while across Europe, governments have hardened their stance on migration amid rising popular support for the far right, who are building their political campaigns on this very issue.

The new policy has been framed by the UK’s Labour government as a decisive break with past failures in border enforcement, notably the previous Conservative government’s now-defunct Rwanda deportation scheme.

Falling through the cracks in France

Beyond the numbers lies more fundamental question: does returning people to France resolve the issue of irregular migration, or simply displace responsibility across the Channel?

From a UK perspective, once individuals are deported back to France, “it’s largely a problem facing the French, rather than us,” explains Walsh.

France, like the UK, struggles to return people to their countries of origin, often due to a lack of return agreements, or the impossibility of sending people back to states considered unsafe, such as Afghanistan. As a result, many migrants find themselves stuck in limbo.

Evidence from reporters specialised in this subject suggests that individuals are neither arrested nor formally accommodated, rather left to their own devices.

Guardian journalist Diane Taylor, who has reported extensively on migration, described a system marked by fragmentation: “This group of asylum seekers are constantly moved around the country to different accommodation by the French government.”

Taylor added, “I believe the French government does not know where many of the returnees are if they drop out of the French system.”

A report from InfoMigrants – a news service specialising in migration coverage – found that once returned to France, migrants are typically offered short-term emergency accommodation, but longer-term support is far less consistent.

Questioned on this issue, both the French Interior Ministry, responsible for immigration and integration, and the mayor’s office in Calais, Northern France, declined to comment.

‘Just another risk to navigate’

Since his arrival in Paris, Adam – a native Arabic speaker – has learned basic French, but is far more confident in English as a foreign language. Today, he survives through odd jobs and informal work.

Though unsure what he will do once he arrives in the UK, one thing he is sure of: “They won’t ask for papers in England like they do in Europe.”

For Adam, the danger of the journey to the UK – and, crucially, the introduction of the new ‘one in, one out’ deal – has not altered his plans. Asked whether the policy represents a deterrent for him: an emphatic “no”.

“It’s not like I have a wife and children to worry about on the boat, I only worry about myself,” he says.

According to Adam, this policy represents just another risk to navigate, not a reason to give up on the journey to a place where he believes he can restart his life.

Adam’s determination reflects a broader pattern observed by NGOs working with migrants in France and the UK. Claudine Frisby works for the charity Care4Calais. She says that the risk of being returned to France seldom alters the long-term intentions of migrants and refugees.

“This is what they’ve been thinking about for months or years, getting to safety in the UK and rebuilding their lives,” Frisby explains, calling the agreement between the two governments a “grubby deal”.

Frisby adds, “The only way to stop crossings and save lives is to create proper, open, and accessible safe routes. Why do they still not get it?”

Optics over outcomes?

Since entering into office in 2024, the UK’s Labour government maintains that their anti-immigration policy is effective: “We have stopped 40,000 crossing attempts since this Government came into office through our joint work with the French,” the Home Office spokesperson said.

Yet, critics argue that such figures obscure the human cost. While returns may satisfy domestic political demands for control, they do little to address why people risk the Channel in the first place: family ties, language, labour opportunities, and the failure of asylum systems elsewhere in Europe.

Six months on, the ‘one-in, one-out’ deal appears less of a deterrent than a mechanism of deflection, leaving migrants trapped in cycles of precarity.

For people like Adam, the stakes may have risen, but the motivation to reach England remains unchanged.