Port returns in UK: How the post-Brexit mobility of EU citizens is restricted

Guest post by Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna and Corina Tulbure. Agnieszka Radziwinowiczówna is an Assistant Professor at the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton. Agnieszka is a qualitative sociologist with a specialisation in social anthropology. She researches deportations and bordering practices. She is the Principal Investigator in the UK2deport research project, where she studies the creation of the UK’s deportation regime targeting EU citizens following the legal changes related to Brexit. Corina Tulbure is an Assistant Professor at the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw. Corina holds a PhD in Sociology (Social Anthropology), focusing on migration, and has a background in cultural studies. She is a post-doc researcher in the UK2deport research project. 

Port returns 

Over the last three years, the number of port returns in the UK has been dynamically growing. In 2023 alone, the UK Border Force refused entry into the UK to foreign passengers 24 686 times. A port return occurs when a non-UK citizen is refused entry into the United Kingdom and subsequently is returned to the country of citizenship or place they travelled from. Port returns happen in the UK port of arrival (airport, seaport). Those who travel by ferry or train on certain cross-Channel routes from Belgium, France, or the Netherlands can be refused entry before departure, as part of the so-called juxtaposed controls. 

In 2023 there were nearly as many port returns as enforced and voluntary returns taken together. Enforced and voluntary returns are return procedures from the inside of the UK territory that consider returns of the people with no legal right to stay in the UK as well as deportations deemed ‘conducive to the public good’, as in the case of people with a criminal conviction. For immigration enforcement, port returns are a more straightforward and cheaper option, as they normally do not involve juridical procedure and imply short or no detention. 

Before Brexit and the end of EU free movement, EU citizens were seldom refused entry to the UK. In the pre-Brexit era, some individuals refused entry gained media attention, as in case of a Polish priest known for far-right extremism who was detained and returned from Stansted airport in 2017. 

The decision on the refusal of entry is discretionary, at the hands of the UK Border Force. If they suspect somebody lacking a visa of coming with the intention to remain (e.g., for work or family reunification), they may refuse entry. For instance, Border Force may refuse entry when a foreigner declares work as the purpose of their travel. As there is no visa requirement to enter the UK, there is no pre-departure screening for EU citizens. The screening is therefore done in UK ports and airports and as part of the juxtaposed controls for those arriving by train or ferry. 

Before the end of EU free movement, EU citizens made up 17 per cent of port returns. Today, they make up 55 per cent. As EU citizens can still travel visa-free to the UK, the question arises: who is refused entry to the UK, and why? 

Central and Eastern Europeans 

The UK Home Office declares that decisions about who will be refused entry into the UK are not biased by national profiling. The HO insists that “Border Force take decisions to stop arriving passengers based on the information that they provide, and not on the basis of their nationality”. 

However, Romanians and Bulgarians are the two most affected nationalities. 6 059 returned Romanians made up 26 per cent of all port returns. 1 481 returned Bulgarians made up 6 per cent of all returnees. The newest available data we refer to reflect the 12-month period between October 2023 and September 2024 (the UK Home Office updates its statistics on a quarterly basis). 

As our research based on interviews with returned Romanian and Polish citizens demonstrates, if a Border Force official believes an individual is planning a longer stay in the UK, they assume the person has come to work. None of our research participants declared work in the UK as the purpose of their travel. A returned Romanian citizen told us she was refused entry because the Border Force assumed she was coming to work in the UK, as she did not have a return ticket: 

And at the border, at the airport, when they asked me where I was going, I said I was coming on holiday. Then, when they looked at my ticket, they saw I didn't have a return ticket, so they sent me back. 

Another returned Romanian said the Home Office refused him entry because they believed he was travelling with too many pieces of clothes: 

I showed them the round-trip ticket. I really had a bag, a normal travel bag, yes, in which I had four or five pairs of pants, I had some gifts, I had three or four t-shirts. And they said, “Sir, if you’re going for three or four days, why do you have so many clothes with you?” I think it’s normal to take care of yourself; I think it’s normal to have… I don’t know, some clothes for change. 

The quotes reveal how Border Force decision-making processes are experienced as arbitrary when determining why a person will be refused entry and, above all, who. This policy leaves significant room for subjective decisions on the part of the border officers. The trajectories of our research participants also reflect this. Some returned to the UK and were admitted entry by a different border officer at a different airport. 

Not only new post-Brexit arrivals are refused entry into the UK. Port returns have become a method of immigration enforcement for UK-resident EU citizens and their family members who have not secured a status under the EU Settlement Scheme. For instance, rather than arresting, detaining and deporting EU citizens with no settled status in the UK, the Border Force refuses entry to those who travel overseas and then return to the UK, as it happened to a Polish citizen and an Italian national who went on holiday abroad. 

Conclusions: human consequences of port returns 

For EU nationals living in the UK without immigration status, the fear of port returns may increase their immobility. Instead of travelling to their home countries, as they often did before Brexit, they choose to extend their stay in the UK, for fear of not being able to re-enter when coming back from vacation. This may apply both to long-term residents in the UK unable to secure a status under the EUSS and new, post-Brexit, EU migrants. 

However, our research shows the resilience of the people who were refused entry to the UK. They keep trying to cross the border. They believe the next time they will be lucky and enter, as they hope they will either meet a different Border Force officer or they fly to a different airport. Port returns discipline border crossers: they buy a round-trip ticket and in advance prepare answers to the questions the Border Force may ask. 

Port returns, officially random, but in practice targeting certain nationalities disproportionately more than others, reveal two key aspects: 

On the one hand, the reversibility of borders. Where no border seemed to exist before Brexit (border crossing involved a conversation with the Border Force but EU citizens were seldom refused entry), post-Brexit, the decision of the border guards has brought the border back into operation. 

On the other hand, a transnational sociability based on previous Brexit freedom of movement (regular round trips because people have social and familial networks in both countries) is cancelled when the person is refused entry to the UK. As a consequence, people engage in repeated border crossing attempts that are stressful and expensive, in order to mantain socio-emotional ties in both countries. 

This research was funded in whole by the National Science Centre of Poland under the grant number 2020/39/D/HS5/02319. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission. 

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