This morning, the BBC of all places, is reporting it has unearthed a ‘shadow industry of law firms and advisers’ which is ‘charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay’ in order to be granted asylum status. In what is just ‘the first part of a major undercover investigation’, the national broadcaster has revealed an organised system in which migrants whose visas are expiring are advised to claim asylum on the basis of fake claims that they are gay.
The problem with granting asylum on the basis of sexuality, or religion, or politics is that it’s inherently impossible to disprove
One law firm charged up to £7,000 for a fake claim, and promised that the chances of refusal were ‘very low’, and one immigration adviser ‘boasted that she had spent more than 17 years’ putting together fake asylum claims, and ‘said she could even arrange for someone to pretend they’d had a gay sexual relationship with a client.’
These are sophisticated operations. Asylum seekers visit GPs ‘pretending to be depressed in order to get medical evidence’ to support their claim, and one even lied about being HIV positive. Lawyers offer to fabricate evidence, including letters from fake lovers, photos at gay events and supporting letters from LGBT organisations. There are even fake websites which post false claims that migrants are facing legal action in Bangladesh ‘because of their political or religious activism’. These are apparently hard for the Home Office to check because Bangladesh’s courts use a ‘primarily paper-based’ system. The BBC also attended an event for ‘genuine gay asylum seekers’ in East London hosted by ‘Worcester LGBT’. Despite around 175 supposed ‘genuine gay asylum seekers’ attending, BBC reporters were told by men there that ‘nobody is a gay here. Not even 1 per cent are gay. Not even 0.01 per cent are gay’
It seems the abuse is an open secret. Fake asylum seekers are evening joining Tory party groups. Samuel Hemsley, Vice Chair of LGBT Conservatives, tweeted this morning that ‘there absolutely is fraud’, which he has ‘seen first hand’, including ‘people trying to sign up and then ask for proof of membership to use in asylum applications’. According to Hemsley, one ‘even told me he was looking to join as his lawyer had told him to’.
Gay asylum policy is also an interesting example of how rapidly the system has become biased against reason, fairness and the interests of the British people. It was less than 20 years ago that Jacqui Smith, then the Labour Home Secretary, said that it was perfectly safe to deport gay and lesbian asylum-seekers to Iran, so long as they lived their lives ‘discreetly’, and that there was no ‘real risk’ of them being discovered, nor of ‘adverse action’ being taken against them. Such a statement now would be met with outrage and horror. We have built a culture in which saying ‘no’ to people, or expecting them to live without boundaries, is anathema.
The Home Office told the BBC that ‘anyone found trying to exploit the system will face the full force of the law, including removal from the UK.’ Strong words, but utterly fanciful. The problem with granting asylum on the basis of sexuality, or religion, or politics is that it’s inherently impossible to disprove. If a Pakistani or Bangladeshi man sits in front of an asylum decision maker and says they are gay, and that they fear for their life if they return home, how can that claim be challenged? With asylum refusals taking far more time and effort than approvals, and with the Home Office determined to bring down the backlog, the bias will always be to wave the claim through, even if it feels unconvincing. This is why we have seen fake baptisms, why the BBC is now reporting fake claims on the basis of atheism, and why so many asylum seekers participate in performative political campaigning in London.
Granting asylum on the basis of unfalsifiable beliefs is stupid, but in reality, the entire asylum system is an invitation to abuse. Once granted asylum these migrants can rely on the generosity of British taxpayers, with their average lifetime cost to us potentially running to hundreds of thousands of pounds. The system itself needs to end. A functioning British state should have no asylum system. The Home Secretary might personally allow a very small number of genuine political refugees to enter the country. Everyone else should be refused entry or sent home at the first opportunity. One day soon we will have a government prepared to end this disaster. Until then the abuse and fraud will continue at our expense.
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