'Return hubs' get UN backing in boost for potential plans to deport failed asylum seekers

"Return hubs" that would see Britain send failed asylum seekers to another country have been endorsed by the UN's refugee agency.

There have been reports that Sir Keir Starmer's government is looking into deporting illegal migrants to the Balkans.

According to The Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper met the UN's high commissioner for refugees last month to discuss the idea.

It would see the government pay countries in the Balkans to take failed asylum seekers - a prospect ministers hope might discourage people from crossing the Channel in small boats.

A total of 9,099 migrants have made that journey so far this year, including more than 700 on Tuesday this week - the highest number on a single day in 2025.

One migrant died while trying to make the crossing on Friday.

The UN's refugee agency has set out how such hubs could work while meeting its legal standards in a document published earlier this week.

It recommended monitoring the hubs to make sure human rights standards are "reliably met".

The country hosting the return hub would need to grant temporary legal status for migrants, and the country sending the failed asylum seekers would need to support it to make sure there are "adequate accommodation and reception arrangements".

A UK government source said it was a helpful intervention that could make the legal pathway to some form of return hub model smoother.

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It comes after the EU Commission proposed allowing EU members to set up so-called "return hubs" abroad, with member state Italy having already started sending illegal migrants abroad.

It sends people with no right to remain to Italian-run detention centres in Albania, something Sir Keir has taken an interest in since coming to power.

With Reform UK leading Labour in several opinion polls this year, the prime minister has been talking tough on immigration - but the figures around Channel crossings have made for difficult reading.