Introduce offshore detention/mass deportation for illegal migrants

The Government should seek to establish offshore detention facilities for individuals who enter the UK illegally, to process them and arrange their deportation.

The UK is facing unprecedented levels of illegal migration, particularly through small boat crossings. We believe current use of hotels and temporary accommodation is unsustainable, costly and dangerous.

We believe that establishing offshore detention centres would act as a strong deterrent, prevent absconding, and allow for the swift processing and removal of those who enter illegally.

We consider the detention and mass deportation of all illegal migrants in the UK is a necessity.

We will do whatever it takes to secure our borders. We believe the number of small boat crossings are shameful and the British people deserve better. To restore order and control to our borders, on 17 November 2025, the Home Secretary announced the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in decades, removing incentives that bring illegal migrants to the UK and scaling up and easing the return of those with no right to be here. More information on these major changes can be found here -

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-and-returns-policy-statement.

These reforms will end the UK’s asylum ‘golden ticket’ which has drawn migrants from safe countries across Europe. We are taking a new approach to refugee protection in the UK, which marks a significant change in direction away from an assumption of offering permanent protection, and towards a more basic, and temporary protection, which we call ‘core protection’ lasting only until a refugee can safely return home. Refugee status will become temporary, reviewed every 30 months, with a 20-year path to settlement, ensuring long-term commitment and integration.

To reduce other pull factors, we have increased illegal working arrests and raids to the highest level in British history, so that there is nowhere to hide. The number of raids has soared by 77% in the UK since the Government came to power, with 17,400 raids made to dodgy businesses - such as nail bars or barbers – leading to an 83% rise in arrests (July 2024 to end of 2025). This major uplift and over 12,300 arrests were made possible by a £5 million funding boost last year for Immigration Enforcement, to pursue this criminality. The crackdown builds on other work to reduce the lure of illegal working that gangs use to sell spaces on small boats.

On small boats, our partnership with France led to 20,000 fewer crossings in 2025, and this Government’s landmark UK-France returns agreement means those arriving risk immediate detention and removal. Since this pilot was introduced over 150 people have been removed in this way. To further reduce arrivals, we are giving police new stronger powers to act earlier to disrupt and take down the operations of criminal smuggling gangs.

More broadly, 50,000 illegal migrants have been removed or deported from British soil since July 2024 - a 23% increase compared to the previous 16-month period before July 2024. We shall go further by returning people to countries that are now safe – eg Syria – and by returning families with no right to be here. As part of this, we are reforming human rights laws so that in deportation cases involving ECHR Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life), the British public interest is given an appropriate weight. We are working closely with international partners to reform interpretation of Article 3 (inhuman or degrading treatment) so it is limited to the most serious forms of ill-treatment in the first place.

To ease removals, this Government will stop at nothing to secure cooperation from all countries to ensure swift and efficient return of those with no right to be in the UK. Where countries fail to cooperate, action will follow, including, where necessary, the use of visa penalties. The UK has already threatened such action on Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Namibia, due to historical poor cooperation. This has already resulted in improvements to cooperation from Namibia and Angola, while the UK has imposed a first set of visa measures on DRC targeting VIPs and diplomatic passport holders. The UK keeps such cooperation under constant review, and will not hesitate to take further such action, where required.

This Government is furious at the number of asylum hotels in this country. We will close every one by the end of this Parliament. Progress is already being made: from over 400 asylum hotels open in summer 2023, costing almost £9 million a day, there are now fewer than 200 in use. We are working to move asylum seekers to more suitable sites such as disused military bases, to ease pressure on our communities.

This Government is restoring order and control to our borders.

Home Office