‘No longer welcome’: France cancels meeting over Johnson’s migrants letter
France has cancelled a meeting with the UK to discuss Channel crossings after Boris Johnson asked the French to take back migrants arriving in Britain.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin has told Home Secretary Priti Patel “she was no longer welcome” at Sunday’s European meeting on migrant issues, a French government spokesman said.
Spokesman Gabriel Attal said it was because of Mr Johnson’s letter to French President Emmanuel Macron.
“That letter was formally poor and its content inappropriate,” Mr Attal told BFMTV.
This is what remains of the boat that capsized in the Channel and resulted in the deaths of 27 people
Mr Darmanin said the letter is a “disappointment” and the fact it was made public was “worse”, according to reports in French media.
An Interior Ministry statement, reported in French media, said the letter was “unacceptable and contrary to our discussions between counterparts”.
The meeting will now go ahead with just France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission.
Conservative MP Tim Loughton told Sky News the French need to “get read” and realise there are consequences to “turning a blind eye” to Channel crossings.
He added that the PM has “come up with practical solutions” and it is “extraordinary” Paris has cancelled the meeting.
Mr Darmanin and Ms Patel spoke on Thursday, with the Home Secretary’s office saying they emphasised the need for “deeper co-operation” and agreed to remain in touch.
Governments on both sides of the Channel have been blaming each other this week after 27 migrants drowned on Wednesday evening off the coast of France as they tried to get to the UK on a small dinghy.
In the letter to Mr Macron, which he tweeted out, the PM set out five steps he thinks both sides should take “as soon as possible”.
The PM’s five-point plan entails:
• Joint patrols to prevent migrant boats from leaving French beaches
• Using more advanced technology such as sensors and radar
• Carry out reciprocal maritime patrols in each nation’s territorial waters and utilise airborne surveillance
• “Deepening the work” of the Joint Intelligence Cell and ensuring there is better intelligence sharing to drive more arrests and prosecutions
• Committing to “immediate work” to strike a bilateral returns agreement between Paris and London, as well as discussions on a UK-EU agreement.
Migrants, including young children, arriving in the UK the day after 27 died
“If those who reach this country were swiftly returned the incentive for people to put their lives in the hands of traffickers would be significantly reduced,” Mr Johnson said.
“This would be the single biggest step we could take together to reduce the draw to Northern France and break the business model of criminal gangs.
“I am confident that by taking these steps and building on our existing cooperation we can address illegal migration and prevent more families from experiencing the devastating loss we saw yesterday.”
Suggestions the number of migrants crossing the Channel has reached record levels this year due to Brexit were dismissed by transport secretary Grant Shapps.
He told Sky News: “I think it’s a bit of a red herring to mix it up with Brexit, it’s not even an argument I’ve heard before.
“There were plenty of people crossing before but in different ways, they tended to do it by lorry but what’s different here is the number of people doing it by sea.
“I think the Europe argument is confusing here because it’s not related to that. It’s heartbreaking to see and I think it’s incumbent on the UK and France to do everything they can do to resolve this and get on top of this human tragedy.”
US federal prosecutors and the co-founders of the crypto mixer Samourai Wallet have asked a court for more time to consider potentially dismissing the case after the Justice Department rolled back its crypto enforcement.
Lawyers for Samourai Wallet CEO Keonne Rodriguez and chief technology officer William Hill said in an April 28 letter to Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman that they jointly requested with the government “for a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule by 16 days.”
The Samourai executives’ lawyers said on April 10 that they wrote to Acting Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton to request the dismissal of the case after an April 7 memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche shuttered the Justice Department’s crypto team.
“On April 24, 2025, defense counsel met with the prosecutors and their supervisors in person at the U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss this request,” the lawyers said.
“The Defendants believe that a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule is warranted to permit Defendants to avoid the significant expense of preparing their motions while the Government determines its position,” the letter stated.
It added that prosecutors agreed to adjourn “without expressing any views on the merits.”
Samourai Wallet’s Rodriguez and Hill were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in April 2024, to which they both pleaded not guilty.
Blanche’s memo said, “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” and it would abandon enforcement and investigations besides those which “focus on prosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses.”
Currently, motions in the Samourai executives’ case are due May 13, responses are due on June 10, and replies on June 24. The letter proposes to put this back to May 29 for motions, June 26 for responses, and July 10 for replies.
The continuance would not affect the trial date, which is slated for early November.
Quashing crypto litigation list lengthens
The move is the latest in a long list of court actions to have prosecutors’ crypto cases quashed under the Trump administration’s favorable stance toward the industry.
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On April 9, SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony, who is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, cited Blanche’s directive in a bid to get his case dismissed.
Meanwhile, on April 28, the DeFi Education Fund petitioned the White House to drop charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm and requested immediate action to “discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.”
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The crypto lobby group, the DeFi Education Fund, has petitioned the Trump administration to end what it claimed was the “lawless prosecution” of open-source software developers, including Roman Storm, a creator of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash.
In an April 28 letter to White House crypto czar David Sacks, the group urged President Donald Trump “to take immediate action to discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.”
The letter specifically mentioned the prosecution of Storm, who was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. His trial is still set for July, and his fellow charged co-founder, Roman Semenov, is at large and believed to be in Russia.
The DeFi Education Fund said that in Storm’s case, the Department of Justice is attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which is “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”
The group also called for the recognition that the prosecution contradicts the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance from Trump’s first term, which established that developers of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols are not money transmitters.
“This kind of legal environment does not just chill innovation — it freezes it,” they argued. The letter added that it also “empowers politically-motivated enforcement and puts every open-source developer at risk, regardless of industry.”
In January, a federal court in Texas ruled that the Treasury overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash.
Stakes could not be higher
The group thanked Trump for his support of the industry and his stated goal to make America the “crypto capital of the planet.”
They added, however, that his goal can’t be realized if developers are prosecuted for building tools that enable the technology.
“We ask President Trump to protect American software developers, restore legal clarity, and end this unlawful DOJ overreach. The job’s not finished, and the stakes could not be higher.”
Related: Tornado Cash dev wants charges dropped after court said OFAC ‘overstepped’
Variant Fund chief legal officer Jake Chervinsky said the Justice Department’s case against Storm is “an outdated remnant of the Biden administration’s war on crypto.”
“There is no justification in law or policy for prosecuting software developers for launching non-custodial smart contract protocols,” he added.
At the time of writing, the petition had attracted 232 signatures from industry executives and developers, including Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, and Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko, among others.
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Migrants convicted of sex offences in the UK or overseas will be unable to claim asylum under government plans to change the law to improve border security.
The Home Office announcement means foreign nationals who are added to the sex offenders register will forfeit their rights to protection under the Refugee Convention.
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As part of the 1951 UN treaty, countries are allowed to refuse asylum to terrorists, war criminals and individuals convicted of a “particularly serious crime” – which is currently defined in UK law as an offence carrying a sentence of 12 months or more.
The government now plans to extend that definition to include all individuals added to the Sex Offenders’ Register, regardless of the length of sentence, in an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is currently going through parliament. It’s understood they also hope to include those convicted of equivalent crimes overseas.
Those affected will still be able to appeal their removal from the UK in the courts under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
More than 10,000 people have now been detected crossing the Channel. Pic: PA
It is unclear how many asylum seekers will be affected, as the government has been unable to provide any projections or past data on the number of asylum seekers added to the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Sex offenders who pose a risk to the community should not be allowed to benefit from refugee protections in the UK.
“We are strengthening the law to ensure these appalling crimes are taken seriously.”
Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Minister Jess Philips said: “We are determined to achieve our mission of halving violence against women and girls in a decade.
“That’s exactly why we are taking action to ensure there are robust safeguards across the system, including by clamping down on foreign criminals who commit heinous crimes like sex offences.”
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The Home Office would like voters to see this as a substantial change. But that’s hard to demonstrate without providing any indication of the scale of the problem it seeks to solve.
Clearly, the government does not want to fan the flames of resentment towards asylum seekers by implying large numbers have been committing sex crimes.
But amid rising voter frustration about the government’s grip on the issue, and under pressure from Reform – this measure is about signalling it is prepared to take tough action.
Conservatives: ‘Too little, too late’
The Conservatives claim Labour are engaged in “pre-election posturing”.
Chris Philp MP, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is too little, too late from a Labour government that has scrapped our deterrent and overseen the worst year ever for small boat crossings – with a record 10,000 people crossing this year already.
“Foreign criminals pose a danger to British citizens and must be removed, but so often this is frustrated by spurious legal claims based on human rights claims, not asylum claims.”
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Has Labour tackled migration?
The Home Office has also announced plans to introduce a 24-week target for appeal hearings (known as “first-tier tribunals”) to be held for rejected asylum seekers living in taxpayer-supported accommodation, or for foreign national offenders.
The current average wait is 50 weeks. The idea is to cut the asylum backlog and save taxpayers money – Labour have committed to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of this parliament.
It’s unclear how exactly this will be achieved, although a number of additional court days have already been announced.
The government also plans to crack down on fake immigration lawyers who advise migrants on how to lodge fraudulent asylum claims, with the Immigration Advice Authority given new powers to issue fines of up to £15,000.
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