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A cabinet minister has asserted that Keir Starmer’s migrant deal with France will continue, despite a judicial ruling temporarily halted the removal of an asylum-seeking man.

The minister emphasized that the emergency injunction preventing the 25-year-old from being flown to Paris would not derail the “one in, one out” plan in the long term.

On Tuesday, a court official granted a temporary injunction after the unnamed man claimed he was a victim of trafficking and risked homelessness if sent back to France.

Kendall told Times Radio that she would not comment on specific cases, but added: “It involves one person, It is not going to weaken the core principle of this agreement.”

Legal and Procedural Challenges

Legal representative representing migrants questioned the government’s unplanned and disorganized approach” to selecting people for deportation, including cases where children were mistakenly targeted.

The lawyer from her firm commented: “There has been quite an arbitrary and chaotic approach to selecting people coming via small boats.”

She noted that children were included in the system despite guidelines state they must be explicitly removed from deportation plans.

Accounts suggested that two 17-year-old boys were wrongly chosen for the program previously.

Background of the Agreement

The Home Office last month detained many small boat migrants under the scheme, pledging to return them to France “within weeks.”

Initially, removals were scheduled on commercial air services from London to Paris during this week, but no one have been sent back so far.

Officials now face the possibility of additional court appeals and setbacks. Sources confirmed that at least several additional people were selected for removal this week.

Observers have drawn parallels the challenges to the former administration’s overseas deportation plan, which faced repeated court obstacles. However, unlike that scheme, the present challenges involve individual cases rather than the whole program.

Details of the Agreement

Under the agreement, signed in July by the UK leader and France’s president, the UK agreed to hold small boat migrants and send them back to France. In exchange, France would take in a comparable quantity of asylum seekers with family ties in the UK.

The prime minister said at the time: “There is no silver bullet, but with a united effort, fresh approaches and a new level of determination, we can finally make progress.”

Recently, the judge who issued the temporary block stated that further investigation was needed to look into the man’s assertion that he was a potential trafficking survivor.

The court was informed that the man and his mother had gone to Ethiopia when he was very small, and that he was later taken illegally from there to Libya in 2023.

He claimed he had afterward made his way via Italy to France, and arrived in the UK by small boat on 12 August after his mother gave £1,000 to smugglers.

Next Steps

French officials has been planning to send asylum seekers to the UK over the weekend as part of the reciprocal deal.

A French interior ministry spokesperson commented: “Initial returnees are still due to arrive in France from the UK this week, and the initial departures from France will start this weekend.”