UK and France agree to send some migrants arriving in Britain by boat back to France

LONDON (AP) — Britain and France agreed Thursday to a pilot plan that will send some migrants who cross the English Channel on small boats back to France as the U.K. government struggles to tamp down criticism that it has lost control of the country’s borders.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the deal Thursday in London. While the initial program a limited number of people, U.K. officials suggest it is a major breakthrough because it sets a precedent that migrants who reach Britain illegally can be returned to France.

"There is no silver bullet here, but with a united effort, new tactics and a new level of intent, we can finally turn the tables,'' Starmer told reporters at a news conference. “For the very first time, migrants arriving via small boat will be detained and returned to France in short order.”

Under the agreement, Britain will send some of those who cross the Channel in small boats back to France while accepting an equal number migrants who are judged to have legitimate claims to asylum in the U.K.

Starmer had pushed for the arrangement, known as the “one in, one out” deal, in hopes of discouraging people from making the dangerous crossing. It is set to begin in weeks.

Small boat crossings have become a potent political issue in Britain, fueled by pictures of smugglers piling migrants into overcrowded, l eaky inflatable boats on the French coast. So far this year, more than 21,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats, up 56% from the same period last year.

The crossing is dangerous and many have died.

"I’m totally committed to make it work, because this is clearly our willingness and our common interest,” Macron said. He added that the point of the pilot was a “deterrence” effect.

The measure announced Thursday is part of broader efforts to build closer cooperation with France, as well as countries further up the migrants’ routes from Africa and the Middle East.

British officials have been pushing for French police to intervene more forcefully to stop boats once they have left the shore, and welcomed the sight of officers slashing rubber dinghies with knives in recent days.

Macron said earlier this week that he and Starmer would aim for “tangible results” on an issue that’s “a burden for our two countries.”

As far back as 2001, the two countries were discussing ways to stop the flow of migrants, though at that time they were focused on people stowing away on trains and trucks entering Britain through the tunnel under the channel.

Over the following years, French authorities cleared out camps near Calais where thousands of migrants gathered before trying to reach Britain. Beefed up security sharply reduced the number of vehicle stowaways, but from about 2018 people-smugglers began offering migrants a new route by sea.

“You see that pattern again and again, where smuggling gangs and migrants try to find new ways to cross from France to the U.K.,” said Mihnea Cuibus, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. “The authorities crack down on that, and then gradually you see migrants and gangs try to adapt to that. And it becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse.”

Cooperation on stopping the boats stalled after Britain’s acrimonious split from the European Union in 2020, but in the past few years the countries have struck several agreements that saw the U.K. pay France to increase police and drone patrols of the coast.

Britain’s previous Conservative government came up with a contentious plan in 2022 to deport asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda. Critics called it unworkable and unethical, and it was scrapped by Starmer soon after he took office in July 2024.

Cuibus said irregular cross-channel migration would likely always be a challenge, but that the measures being discussed by Britain and France could make an impact, “if they’re implemented in the right way.

“But that’s a big if,” he said.

The UK-France summit came after a three-day state visit that stressed the longstanding ties between the two countries despite the rupture caused by Britain's departure from the European Union. Punctuated by carriage rides, banquets and champagne toasts, the two leaders hugged and offered a picture of unity — a step forward to greater cooperation in the future.

The bonhomie was followed by concrete actions. The two leaders sealed deals on defense cooperation, including a pledge to coordinate their nuclear deterrents for the first time.

“Now as Europe’s only nuclear powers and as leaders in NATO, we play a vital role in preserving the peace and security on this continent,” Starmer said.

“From today, our adversaries will know that any extreme threat to this continent would prompt a response from our two nations,” Starmer added.

Also Thursday Macron and Starmer visited a military base and dialed in to a planning meeting of the “ coalition of the willing, ” a U.K.- and France-initiated plan for an international force to guarantee a future ceasefire in Ukraine.

Americans attended the meeting for the first time, including retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who have co-sponsored a new sanctions bill against Russia, were also at the table.

The group agreed to set up its headquarters in Paris to facilitate a rapid deployment after the war ends.

Associated Press Writer Brian Melley contributed.

French President Emmanuel Macron meets Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday, July 10, 2025 for a UK-France summit.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron hold a joint press conference in London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron, host a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing during a joint military visit to the Northwood Headquarters, in London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, right, look at screens during a joint military visit to the MARCOM centre, maritime command centre in Northwood, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, centre left, and French President Emmanuel Macron, centre right, arrive for a joint military visit to the MARCOM centre, maritime command centre in Northwood, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, right, talk during a joint military visit to the MARCOM centre, maritime command centre in Northwood, London, Thursday July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a plenary at the UK-France Summit in Downing Street, London Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Yui Mok/Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, and his wife Brigitte, arrive at the Guildhall banquet in London, Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

France's President Emmanuel Macron reacts with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, second right, during a visit to The British Museum in London, Wednesday July 9, 2025. (Benjamin Cremel/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and wife Victoria welcome French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte to 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, July 9, 2025.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron sit down for bilateral talks at 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, July 9, 2025.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The next U.S. census is four years away, but two lawsuits playing out this year could affect how it will be done and who will be counted.

Allies of President Donald Trump are behind the federal lawsuits challenging various aspects of the once-a-decade count by the U.S. Census Bureau, which is used to determine congressional representation and how much federal aid flows to the states.

The challenges align with parts of Trump's agenda even as the Republican administration must defend the agency in court.

A Democratic law firm is representing efforts to intervene in both cases because of concerns over whether the U.S. Justice Department will defend the bureau vigorously. There have been no indications so far that government attorneys are doing otherwise, and department lawyers have asked that one of the cases be dismissed.

As the challenges work their way through the courts, the Census Bureau is pushing ahead with its planning for the 2030 count and intends to conduct practice runs in six locations this year.

America First Legal, co-founded by Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, is leading one of the lawsuits, filed in Florida. It contests methods the bureau has used to protect participants' privacy and to ensure that people in group-living facilities such as dorms and nursing homes will be counted.

The lawsuit's intent is to prevent those methods from being used in the 2030 census and to have 2020 figures revised.

“This case is about stopping illegal methods that undermine equal representation and ensuring the next census complies with the Constitution," Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal, said in a statement.

The other lawsuit was filed in federal court in Louisiana by four Republican state attorneys general and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration and supports reduced legal immigration. The lawsuit seeks to exclude people who are in the United States illegally from being counted in the numbers for redrawing congressional districts.

In both cases, outside groups represented by the Democratic-aligned Elias Law Group have sought to intervene over concerns that the Justice Department would reach friendly settlements with the challengers.

In the Florida case, a judge allowed a retirees’ association and two university students to join the defense as intervenors. Justice Department lawyers have asked that the case be dismissed.

In the Louisiana lawsuit, government lawyers said three League of Women Voters chapters and Santa Clara County in California had not shown any proof that department attorneys would do anything other than robustly defend the Census Bureau. A judge has yet to rule on their request to join the case.

A spokesman for the Elias Law Group, Blake McCarren, referred in an email to its motion to dismiss the Florida case, warning of “a needlessly chaotic and disruptive effect upon the electoral process” if the conservative legal group were to prevail and all 50 states had to redraw their political districts.

The goals of the lawsuits, particularly the Louisiana case, align with core parts of Trump's agenda, although the 2030 census will be conducted under a different president because his second term will end in January 2029.

During his first term, for the 2020 census, Trump tried to prevent those who are in the U.S. illegally from being used in the apportionment numbers, which determine how many congressional representatives and Electoral College votes each state receives. He also sought to have citizenship data collected through administrative records.

A Republican redistricting expert had written that using only the citizen voting-age population, rather than the total population, for the purpose of redrawing congressional and state legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

Both Trump orders were rescinded when Democratic President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census figures were released by the Census Bureau. The first Trump administration also attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire, a move that was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In August, Trump instructed the U.S. Commerce Department to change the way the Census Bureau collects data, seeking to exclude immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Neither officials at the White House nor the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, explained what actions were being taken in response to the president's social media post.

Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation to exclude noncitizens from the apportionment process. That could shrink the head count in both red and blue states because the states with the most people in the U.S. illegally include California, Texas, Florida and New York, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Constitution's 14th Amendment says “the whole number of persons in each state” should be counted for the numbers used for apportionment. The numbers also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal dollars to the states for roads, health care and other programs.

The Louisiana lawsuit was filed at the end of the Biden administration and put on hold in March at the request of the Commerce Department. Justice Department lawyers representing the Cabinet agency said they needed time to consider the position of the new leadership in the second Trump administration. The state attorneys general in December asked for that hold to be lifted.

So far, in the court record, there is nothing to suggest that those government attorneys have done anything to undermine the Census Bureau's defense in both cases, despite the intervenors' concerns.

In the Louisiana case, Justice Department lawyers argued against lifting the hold, saying the Census Bureau was in the middle of planning for the 2030 census: “At this stage of such preparations, lifting the stay is not appropriate.”

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

FILE - Two young children hold signs through the car window that make reference to the 2020 U.S. Census as they wait in the car with their family at an outreach event in Dallas, June 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

FILE - People walk past posters encouraging participation in the 2020 Census in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, April 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

Immigration activists rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments over the Trump administration's plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, in Washington, April 23, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)