Keir Starmer’s first migrant flight under the “one in one out” scheme was cancelled at the last miute because of legal threats.
One migrant was set to be flown from Heathrow to Paris on an Air France passenger flight on Monday but the flight was postponed amid protests by charities and threats of legal action, the Telegraph reported.
The Home Office is understood to be planning to put him on another flight on Tuesday, with the French authorities preparing to accommodate him in a hotel in Roissy-en-France, in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris.
British and French charities have launched a campaign to bombard Air France with phone calls, emails and social media messages urging them “not to agree to collaborate with the interior ministry and not to agree to deport these people on these flights”.
A spokesman for Auberge des Migrants, a charity that supports migrants in northern France, said: “There were a lot of people who responded to this campaign and agreed to send emails asking for this collaboration with the Government to be stopped.”
Lawyers are also advising many of the 90 Channel migrants who have been detained since the beginning of August ready for their enforced return to France.
The Home Office has to give “generous” time extensions to the migrants to take legal advice on challenging their deportation as a result of a ruling against the Tory government’s thwarted Rwanda deportation scheme.
Lawyers told the Telegraph said this suggested the legal process was taking longer than anticipated by the Government.
Instead of a single charter flight carrying a significant group of migrants, the Home Office has opted for daily commercial flights of smaller numbers.
Some 100 migrants were detained on arrival into the UK at the start of August before their names and details were passed to the French for approval.
Most are understood to be from countries with high asylum grant rates but also those accounting for the highest number of crossings including Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan.
Lawyers believe their cases could be challenged under their rights to a family life under article eight of the European Convention of Human Rights if they have relatives in the UK. Cases could be lodged on the grounds that they have been trafficked or suffer mental ill health.
As part of the agreement, a similar number of asylum seekers from France will come to the UK. The first flight into Britain is scheduled for Saturday.
