UN refugee agency backs return hubs in boost to potential Labour plan

Belfast Telegraph - 19/04
The United Nations refugee agency has endorsed “return hubs” in a boost to potential Government plans to send failed asylum seekers to third countries.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Government has been seeking to crack down on people-smuggling across the Channel and there have been reports that they could seek to send failed asylum seekers to overseas hubs in the Balkans.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper met the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, last month.

During the meeting she discussed the prospect of paying countries in the Balkans to take Britain’s failed asylum seekers, The Times reported.

The UNHCR has set out how returns hubs could work while meeting its legal standards in a document published this week.

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

(PA Graphics)

The UNHCR said returns hubs could “appropriately be explored” and that it could play a role in supporting countries to use them as long as it does not conflict with its mandate to protect refugees.

The agency recommended monitoring to make sure human...
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