Immigration UK: Talks held over 'return hubs' for failed asylum seekers, Sir Keir Starmer says

Speaking during a press conference in Albania on Thursday, the Prime Minister revealed the UK government had begun discussions about sending asylum seekers abroad for processing after their claims had been rejected in the UK.

Sir Keir would not confirm which countries were in talks over the deal, instead saying updates would be announced when there were further details.

The Prime Minister told GB News: “What now we want to do and are having discussions of, talks of, is return hubs, which is where someone has been through the system in the UK, they need to be returned and we have to make sure they’re returned effectively and we’ll do that, if we can, through return hubs.”

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In the same press conference, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama suggested his country was not open to hosting UK return hubs.

“We have been asked by several countries if we were open to it, and we said no, because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy and the rest is just love,” he told reporters in Tirana.

The announcement comes in the same week the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the year, putting 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings.

Sir Keir said establishing return hubs would not be a “silver bullet” for halting the crossings.

But combined with other measures to tackle smuggling gangs and returning those with no right to be in the UK, the move would “allow us to bear down on this vile trade and make sure that we stop those people crossing the Channel”, Sir Keir said.

If established, the return hubs would target failed asylum seekers who were seeking to frustrate their deportation or had lost their paperwork.

By removing them to another country, the government said it hoped to reduce the ability to find other reasons to prevent deportation, such as starting a family.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “This will basically apply to people who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK, but are attempting to stall, using various tactics, whether it’s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal.”

The spokesman added: “It will ensure that they don’t have the chance to make their removal harder by using tactics such as starting a family, etc, as we have seen from cases in the past. That obviously will reduce the cost to the taxpayer.”

The proposal is also expected to act as a deterrent to further crossings, but differs from the previous government’s Rwanda scheme as it would only apply to failed asylum seekers who have exhausted their avenues for appeal. Officials will conduct negotiations with potential host countries over coming months.

Italy operates a similar programme with Albania, sending failed asylum seekers to the country while they await deportation.

While in Tirana, Sir Keir is also expected to announce further co-operation with Albania on tackling illegal migration and organised crime alongside his Albanian counterpart.

This is set to include plans to help ensure returned migrants stay in Albania rather than try to enter the UK again – the so-called “revolving door problem”.

Migration is also likely to feature during talks at the European Political Community summit in Tirana on Friday, along with discussion of defence and Ukraine.