[Joint Statement] On Harm Caused by the UK–France One In, One Out Scheme

‍Joint Statement on the Harm Caused by the UK–France ‘One-in, One-out’ Scheme

We are a group of migration and refugee charities and visitor groups to detention centres across the UK and in France. Since the ‘one-in, one-out’ scheme (‘‘this scheme’’) became operational last August, many of us have been directly supporting people affected by it.

While we strongly support the establishment of safe routes, we firmly reject the government’s claim that this scheme constitutes one.

For one person to reach the UK safely from France under this scheme, another must endure a dangerous sea journey, be denied access to asylum, and then subjected to detention and forced removal.

A safe route must not treat people as commodities or require one person to be placed at great risk of harm so that another can reach safety, and it must not make one person’s access to asylum dependent on denying this access to another. Furthermore, people seeking asylum should not be punished for arriving through informal routes. Most refugees have no choice in how they travel and have often been forced to flee volatile situations in haste. Penalising them for this contravenes the Refugee Convention and ignores the basic realities of forced displacement.

In practice, within just six months of its implementation, many of us have witnessed first-hand and independent clinicians have documented the profound harm this scheme has caused to people seeking asylum. People are subjected to harsh detention conditions, excessive use of force, safeguarding failures, inadequate access to legal advice and healthcare, and severe mental harm under this scheme.

Harsh Detention Conditions

Detention is harsh, harmful, and wholly unsuitable for people seeking asylum. People detained under this scheme include those from war-torn regions and oppressive regimes, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, and Kurdish people from a number of countries.

People who may have experienced torture, trafficking, severe violence and other traumatic events have been detained in prison-like facilities, exposing them to conditions that exacerbate psychological harm. Some were detained for over three months under this scheme. Research consistently shows that longer periods of detention result in greater harm.

Excessive Use of Force

People, including those with a history of torture or mental health conditions, reported experiencing the use of force, restraints, or segregation during detention or removal attempts under this scheme. For people who have survived torture, trafficking, ill-treatment or other trauma, the use of force, including physical restraints, can be retraumatising, echoing past experiences of powerlessness.

We are particularly concerned about the alleged excessive use of force on protesters at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre (‘‘IRC’’) on 14 January, where more than 60 people seeking asylum staged a peaceful protest against the scheme. The use of riot shields, dogs, and PAVA spray was a disproportionate response to people in detention while peacefully protesting this scheme.

Safeguarding failures

There have been widespread and well-documented shortcomings in safeguarding measures across the detention estate. However, the arbitrary detention and accelerated removal processes embedded in this scheme exacerbate existing safeguarding failures, as each individual’s vulnerabilities and risk of harm are routinely disregarded, with minimal time for appeals, reconsideration, or intervention by charities.

For some people, screening interviews under the inadmissibility process took place after midnight or remotely by phone or online, which is wholly inappropriate for people who have just survived a perilous sea journey. This practice predictably results in safeguarding concerns being missed during interviews. As a result, people detained under this scheme include age-disputed children, survivors of torture, and survivors of human trafficking and modern slavery.

Although unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are formally excluded from this scheme, many of us often encounter age-disputed children being detained under it, with their asylum claims deemed inadmissible. Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group reported five age disputes at Brook House, and Jesuit Refugee Service UK reported four at Harmondsworth, both in January 2026 alone. Detention Action described the detention of young people as occurring at a level “which [it has] not encountered before.” Humans for Rights Network has identified a total of 28 age-disputed children across the detention estate to date, but the actual number is likely much higher. Please see additional evidence regarding children being treated as adults at the end of this statement.

Several charities among us also reported that dozens of people with a history of torture were detained under this scheme, and, in many cases, removed to France. Medical Justice found that 18 out of 20 clients who had a full independent medical assessment had clinical evidence that they had been tortured, and 14 of the group had clinical evidence of trafficking. This includes people who experienced torture in their country of origin, during their journey to the UK, and in France. Some people were removed under this scheme even after disclosing past experiences of sexual violence, rape, or sexual assault in Northern France, or a valid fear of violence from smugglers operating there.

A significant number of people detained under this scheme have displayed indicators of human trafficking or modern slavery during their asylum and detention process, including through Asylum Registration Questionnaires, Rule 35 reports, and their healthcare records. However, few were referred to the National Referral Mechanism (‘‘NRM’’), which is intended to identify and support survivors, without the intervention of a legal representative. Some of these individuals have already been removed under this scheme, despite clear indicators of a risk of re-trafficking in France.

Rule 34 and Rule 35, two major clinical safeguarding mechanisms in detention, continue to be flawed and underused. Rule 34 GP appointments, designed to identify physical and mental health needs within 24 hours of entering detention, are very often not provided. These appointments should be offered in the healthcare screening on arrival in detention, but frequently their safeguarding purpose is not explained and/or interpreters are not used so the appointment may be declined without a proper understanding of its purpose.

If an IRC GP is concerned that someone is likely to be harmed by detention, may have suicidal intentions or may be a torture survivor, they are required to send a Rule 35 report to the Home Office which triggers a review of their detention. While the Home Office, in general, often refuses to release people in response to Rule 35 reports, many of us have observed and Medical Justice has documented an even lower proportion of releases among people detained under this scheme.

Inadequate Access to legal advice

The primary route for people in detention to access legal advice is through the Detained Duty Advice Scheme (‘‘DDAS’’). However, this service was already highly unreliable and fraught with delays, prior to the introduction of this scheme, with a range of recent research indicating that the majority of people in detention do not have legal representation despite needing it. The accelerated removal process required by this scheme further exacerbates these flaws, making it even harder for people to access legal advice and representation.

Under this scheme, people in detention are given only seven days to respond to a Notice of Intent from the Home Office stating that their asylum claims may be deemed inadmissible. However, people report significant delays in receiving a DDAS appointment. For some, it took several days to speak to a solicitor. Many were also told that law firms lack the capacity to take on new cases, either during or after appointments.

People are often required to make numerous attempts to attend a DDAS appointment and wait for solicitors to review their cases before they can secure legal representation. DDAS delays are compounded by a very short window to challenge their inadmissibility and removal, resulting in many people under this scheme being detained and removed to France without ever finding legal representation.

Even where people secure some level of legal representation, some solicitors will take on bail applications but either not respond to their Notices of Intent or drop cases once such notices are issued. In the unusual cases where people successfully secure bail and are released from detention, many are soon re-detained and again face removal to France.

Encountering severe obstacles to accessing justice, as well as experiencing or witnessing re-detention, leaves people in despair. Many give up hope of securing legal representation, even though evidence suggests they may face serious danger upon removal to France.

Severe Mental Harm
People seeking asylum who may have experienced severe violence and highly traumatic events are locked away in prison-like facilities under this scheme, deprived of the support they need to recover and face substantial barriers to accessing justice.

As a result, many of us supporting people in detention have observed alarmingly high levels of mental health issues, including signs of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (‘‘PTSD’’), as well as incidents of self-harm and suicidal risk among those detained under this scheme, including age-disputed children. The mental health of all 20 clients assessed by Medical Justice’s independent clinicians deteriorated while in detention under this scheme; 15 had PTSD, including three with symptoms of complex PTSD. More than 30 individuals went on a mass hunger strike last November. At least two attempted suicide.

Conclusion

Instead of supporting people seeking asylum with dignity and care, this government is inflicting further harm on people who have already survived war, torture, persecution, violence, human trafficking, and a treacherous sea journey to reach the UK.

We urgently call on civil society to resist this policy and demand an end to this scheme. We urge this government to immediately change course, halt this dangerous scheme, establish reliable and accessible safe routes that do not depend on the suffering of others, and end policies that penalise people seeking asylum for their mode of arrival.

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Additional Evidence: Children treated as adults

Since August 2025, Humans for Rights Network (‘‘HFRN’’) has identified 28 age-disputed unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (‘‘children’’) detained under the ‘one-in, one-out’ scheme. At least 8 children have either had their ages accepted by local authorities or are now in the care of local authorities awaiting the outcomes of age assessments, others continue to dispute their ages.

Issues facing children include:

Flawed decisions made on age by the Home Office
Once children are declaring their minority, we have consistently seen Home Office decision makers conducting flawed ‘age assessments’ based purely on physical appearance and demeanor. The flawed nature of these assessments are well documented here and here.

Barriers to accessing local authority-led age assessments or entitled care and support due to being detained
Children are only able to access local authorities with significant intervention from NGOs, which in the first instance relies on children having to identify and contact NGOs that can assist them.

Disadvantages in navigating complex processing in detention
Children are at a significant disadvantage in navigating complex processing in detention, such as accessing legal advice, NRM referrals or Rule 35 reports.

Children are detained and often share cells with unrelated adults
This has led to a number of children exiting age dispute legal challenges, even when they have been advised by public law solicitors to have strong cases, resulting in children being removed to France.

Use of force against children
One child reported being tear-gassed in his cell during recent violence in Harmondsworth, as documented above.

Mental harm and ongoing traumatic experience
Children have reported experiencing nightmares, suicidal ideation, mental health decline, and extreme fear as a result of their detention. Many of the children we have supported are also survivors of trafficking and/or torture. Ongoing traumatic experiences will impact a child’s ability to recall details of past events due to impact on memory – significantly prejudicing outcomes of age assessment that are taking place in detention.

Barriers to Accessing Evidence
Where children have evidence of their age, either in the form of ID documents or contact with relatives to provide this, they are restricted from obtaining this evidence due to their detention. Strict time limits and removal timelines further prevent children from attempting to gather any supporting evidence – with their detention hugely undermining the fairness and integrity of the age dispute process. Further barriers exist due to digital exclusion and restrictions on communication.

France’s Awareness of Child Removals
It remains unclear if the UK is informing France of its decision to remove an individual who is age-disputed and therefore, if France is aware that children have been removed there.

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Signatories:

UK and Northern Ireland Organisations:

1. Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees, AVID
2. Bail for Immigration Detainees, BID
3. Beyond Detention
4. Detention Action
5. Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group
6. Humans for Rights Network, HfRN
7. Immigration Law Practitioners Association, ILPA
8. Jesuit Refugee Service UK, JRS UK
9. Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, JCWI
10. Medical Justice
11. Migrants’ Rights Network
12. Scottish Detainee Visitors, SDV
13. Women for Refugee Women

French Organisations:

1. Auberge des migrants
2. Calais Appeal consortium
3. Calais Food Collective
4. L’Auberge des Migrants
5. La capuche mobilisée
6. Project Play
7. Refugee Women’s Centre
8. Ubuntu
9. Utopia56

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