Mr Justice Sheldon ruled on Friday morning that Shabana Mahmood’s decision to cut trafficking safeguards for an asylum seeker was unlawful, a ruling that goes to the heart of the one in one out asylum returns deal with France. The judgment means five small boat asylum seekers can continue their legal claims while the Home Office’s handling of people already sent to France faces renewed scrutiny.
Five small boat claims
The legal challenge was brought by five small boat asylum seekers earmarked for return to France. Four of the five were from Eritrea and one was from Sudan. Three of the five had already been removed to France by the Home Office before the judgment was published.
Sheldon found that Mahmood’s decision to amend the trafficking guidance made a real difference in two of the asylum seekers’ cases, while it made no difference in two of the other cases. All five were given permission to proceed with their legal claims, keeping their challenge alive even after some of them had already crossed back to France.
What Mahmood changed
Mahmood changed the trafficking guidance so people denied trafficking protections no longer had the right to ask for it to be reconsidered. She did that to speed up returns under the one in one out asylum returns deal, which allows one person who travelled from France to the UK on a small boat to be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another asylum seeker in France who has not attempted to cross the Channel.
In the UK, trafficking victims have a right to the same protections. Sheldon said: “In my judgment such a decision making process cannot be regarded as robust and effective.”
France, trafficking and removals
The home secretary argued that France is a signatory to treaties protecting trafficking victims, but the court heard evidence that trafficking victims who are not French or were not trafficked in France do not get the same protections there. Before Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron agreed the one in one out deal on 10 July 2025, officials were aware that the French government did not afford equal protection to asylum seekers returned from the UK who may have been trafficked in countries such as Libya.
Since the scheme started last August, more than 1,000 people are likely to have been removed to France under the scheme, and hundreds more small boat arrivals are in UK detention centres awaiting forced return. Officials were also aware there could have been problems with accommodating some of the asylum seekers sent back to France because of shortages of places for them to live.
What the ruling changes now
The judgment does not rewrite the one in one out deal itself, but it does unsettle the guidance used to move potential trafficking victims through the return process. For the five claimants, the immediate result is straightforward: their cases stay alive. For the wider scheme, the unanswered issue is how many of the asylum seekers already removed to France will be affected by the ruling, and how the Home Office will handle future trafficking claims under the same returns system.
