![Five European countries join to start deportation flights](https://www.jurist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/jurist-white-text.png)
[JURIST] Interior ministers for Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany meeting prior to the G8 summit [official website] Tuesday announced a plan to put together joint flights to deport illegal immigrants from the European Union. The plan calls for planes to stop in each of the five nations to pick up illegal immigrants of the same nationality before returning them to their home country. The five countries – dubbed the Group of Five – hope that the combined effort will streamline Europe's attempt to eradicate illegal immigration. Another aspect of the proposed agreement are joint naval operations that would be carried out in the Mediterranean to block human trafficking from countries in Africa. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarcozy [BBC profile] said that the deportation flights could begin in a matter of days. BBC News has more. The US currently operates a similar program of deportation flights to Mexico [JURIST report].