The government is considering sending failed asylum seekers, including those arriving on small boats, to overseas ‘migrant hubs’, Sky News understands.
A Home Office source has told political correspondent Amanda Akass that the government is in the “very early stages” of discussions around the idea, and is keen to learn about what Italy has been doing in Albania.
The right-wing Italian government has built two facilities in the Balkan country aiming to hold migrants there while processing their asylum requests.
Government sources told The Times newspaper that UK ministers are planning to approach countries in the western Balkans including Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia.
It comes as a number of migrants were pictured arriving in Dover, Kent, on Saturday.
On Friday, 246 people made the perilous journey across the Channel from France in five boats – bringing the provisional total for the year so far to 5,271.
On Thursday, 341 people crossed in six boats.
This is the earliest point in the year that crossings have reached the 5,000 mark since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018.
Labour’s plan is expected to differ substantially from the previous Tory government’s Rwanda plan, which aimed to deport all migrants who arrived in the UK illegally, regardless of whether or not their asylum claims would be successful.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Rwanda was considered an “unsafe” country.
Amanda Akass said the Home Office source “won’t say which countries are being considered because they don’t want to pre-empt any discussions which haven’t even officially begun yet”.
“But I am told that the government is closely looking at the example of Italy, which has a treaty with Albania and has built two detention centres in Albania to house asylum seekers while their claims are being processed there.”
Akass noted there have been legal challenges to that deal, adding: “But it looks like the government are watching that to see what the outcome may be.”
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Inside Italy’s Albanian migrant centres
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Meanwhile, the European Union last week announced that it was proposing to allow member states to set up return hubs.
The plan has been endorsed by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, which offered to “advise and assist states in the design and operationalisation of innovative return policy that is both effective and in line with European and international law”.
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The UK signed a “road-map” agreement with France earlier this month aimed at bolstering co-operation to tackle people smuggling across the Channel.
The government’s new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill also continues through parliament with plans to introduce new criminal offences and hand counter terror-style powers to police and enforcement agencies to crack down on people smuggling gangs.
Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, said: “This is Labour admitting they made a catastrophic mistake in cancelling the Rwanda scheme before it even started.
“But the tragedy is it will take some time before this can be done and, in the meantime, tens of thousands of illegal migrants will have poured into the country, costing UK taxpayers billions and making a mockery of our border security.
“The fact they are 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 failed.
“In fact, illegal immigrants crossing the channel are up 28% since the election and this year has been the worst ever. Labour has lost control of our borders. 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”.
He said: “I’m actually 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.
“But they’ve also got to do quite a few other things. There’s too many hotels that are being used because people aren’t being processed quickly enough, and Liberal Democrats have argued for a long time that if you process people, you give them the right to work so they can actually contribute.
“That’s the way you could save a lot of money, and I think taxpayers would support that.”
The government has been contacted for further comment.
