Government considering sending failed asylum seekers to Balkans-OxBig News Network

Failed asylum seekers could be sent to the Balkans under plans being considered by the government.

Home Office officials have discussed proposals to set up overseas “return hubs” to house asylum seekers who have had their claims rejected and all appeals exhausted.

The proposals, which are at a “very early stage”, according to a government source, would involve payments to host countries for each person removed from the UK.

The prime minister has pledged to tackle the crisis of people crossing the Channel on small boats and to “significantly” cut net migration.

He previously scrapped a Conservative scheme to send migrants who had arrived in small boats to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed there.

Unlike that scheme, the new proposals would apply only to asylum seekers whose claims had been rejected and who had no further routes of appeal.

Overseas centres would enable the government to remove failed asylum seekers who come from countries deemed unsafe for them to be returned to, such as Iran and Somalia, as well as to host other rejected claimants before transfer to removal flights to their home countries.

The proposals follow moves by the European Commission to endorse the use of “return hubs” by members of the EU.

Earlier this month, it put forward a proposal for members to use return hubs as an “innovative” solution for “migration management”.

It said families with children, and unaccompanied children, would be excluded from the scheme.

Any return hub scheme would require officials to strike deals with countries housing the centres.

The current proposals are focused on countries in the western Balkans – a region which includes Albania, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Labour believes the scheme could save money by speeding up the removal process and increasing the numbers involved.

Last year, there were 9,151 asylum-related returns, 36% more than in 2023.

Officials believe it could also help to alleviate the pressure on local authority budgets from failed asylum seekers who are homeless and whom they are legally obliged to support.

However, any scheme involving overseas centres for migrants is likely to face legal challenges as well as fierce opposition from refugee charities.

Italy has sought to process migrant claims at two detention centres in Albania but has been blocked from doing so by the Italian courts.

A government source said the issue was “a shared challenge right across the world and we’ve always said this international problem needs an international solutions”.

“That’s why we’re looking at the widest possible set of options with a completely open mind.

“Any scheme we’d consider would always need to meet the test of being affordable, workable and legal.”

Enver Solomon of the Refugee Council criticised the government’s proposal.

“Headline-grabbing gimmicks and knee-jerk, very costly, initiatives like this seem to be more about sounding tough than actually solutions that will work,” he told the BBC.

“We know from our work that working with people and supporting them to return to the countries they’ve come from is far more successful than shipping them somewhere like Albania where they’re going to be detained in what will inevitably be prison-like conditions.”

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “The fact Labour is now looking at offshore processing shows they were wrong to cancel Rwanda before it even started and shows their attempts to ‘smash the gangs’ have dismally failed”.

He claims Labour had “lost control of our borders” and added that they should “urgently start the Rwanda removals scheme”.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the number of people crossing the Channel was “really worrying”.

More than 5,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel on small boats so far this year, according to latest figures.

Speaking to reporters in Harrogate during the Lib Dem spring conference, Sir Ed said he was “glad that the government scrapped the Rwanda scheme because it wasn’t working as a deterrent”.

“In fact, hardly anybody went, and it was costing huge amounts of money. If they’ve got a better scheme that will work, we’ll look at that”.

He called on the government to speed up processing times to save taxpayers money.