Migrants cannot be imprisoned just because they have entered a country illegally, Europe’s highest court has ruled, in a potential blow to British, Dutch and French police attempting to prevent people smuggling over the Channel.
France had no right to detain a Ghanaian woman who tried to sneak into Britain by travelling on the Channel Tunnel with someone else’s passport, the European Court of Justice ruled.
Doing so breached the EU Return Direct which say illegal migrants must be invited to go home voluntarily first, within a window of up to a month.
People can only be locked up if they later fail to comply with a deportation order, if letting them go risks undermining the deportation order, or if they are convicted of another offence.
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