How successful asylum claims for gay refugees have QUADRUPLED since pre-Covid

The number of asylum seekers successfully claiming to be gay to bag a one-way ticket to Britain has quadrupled since pre-Covid.

Before the small boats crisis hit all-time highs, fewer than 500 arrivals were granted refugee status because of their sexual orientation each year.  

But figures exposing our ‘push-over’ system reveal this rose to 2,133 in 2023.

From Bangladesh, where homosexual acts can be punished with life imprisonment, grants have risen 10-fold since 2015, MailOnline can reveal.

Asylum claims are also being accepted from residents of nations where being gay is legal, such as Albania. 

The full findings of our investigation, part of our long-running series into ‘soft-touch’ Britain, can be viewed below.

Home Office chiefs demand all asylum seekers trying to stay in Britain offer concrete proof to show they are at risk of persecution in their home country. 

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Campaigners say they also must provide ‘credible evidence’ they are LGBT+, such as love letters and photos with partners.

Yet critics claim that many – under the advise of legal firms funded by taxpayers – try to game the system by pretending to be gay. 

Robert Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: ‘The Home Office has lost control of the asylum system and allowed it to be hijacked by lefty lawyers who are fully committed to undermining Britain’s borders.

‘These figures show many illegal migrants are claiming to be gay simply because it bolsters their chances of being given refugee status. 

‘Far too many grants of asylum are given to undeserving individuals who have lied their way through the process. 

‘The system is swamped, costing taxpayers an absolute fortune, and is not currently fit for purpose. The only way to restore order is to freeze asylum claims, end the corruption, and bring back a semblance of border control.’

Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘The soaring figures are another clear sign that Britain is now a push-over when it comes to gaming the asylum system. 

‘If you want to migrate and hail from a country where you know the no British government will ever return you, all you need do is concoct an unverifiable back story, and you’re home and dry.’

Our analysis comes after a Pakistani asylum seeker last week begged Keir Starmer to let him stay in the UK because he is gay.  

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Ali Raza Nasir, who came to Britain from Pakistan as a student and has claimed asylum in the UK because he is gay, criticised Sir Keir Starmer’s rhetoric on deporting people like him

Ali Raza Nasir insists he came to the UK to study but realised he would be ‘safe’ here when he visited Soho in London and met other gay people. Mr Nasir fears he will be deported to his home nation, where an arranged marriage with a woman awaits.

Meanwhile, an Albanian asylum seeker who petitioned for the right to stay in the UK because he was ‘gay’ had his case denied earlier this month. An immigration judge found Esmir Demaj was now married to a woman.

In one of the most brazen cases, as told by a Home Office source to the Mail, a man was granted asylum after he ‘produced a photograph of himself with his arm around another man’ as proof he was gay. It subsequently turned out that the person he had his arm around was his brother.

Another notorious case from January made a mockery of the protections offered to gay people facing hardship.

A convicted gay Zimbabwean paedophile was allowed to stay in Britain under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because, it was argued, he would face ‘substantial hostility’ if he was sent home. On that occasion, there was no dispute that the man was attracted to males, even if they were children.

The article is frequently used by asylum seekers to launch appeals on the basis that their personal circumstances would expose them to harm in their home countries.

Home Office statistics, which began in 2015, do not show whether sexual orientation was the sole basis for the asylum claim.

In 2023, the most recent year full data exists for, there were 578 asylum claims made on the basis of sexual orientation from Pakistan. 

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Pakistan was followed by Bangladesh (175), Nigeria (103) and India (39).

MailOnline’s investigation into the issue found several legal firms advertising advice on how to jump through the Home Office’s official hoops.

They issue guidance on how asylum seekers can ace their personal testimony interview, which is described as ‘the most compelling piece of evidence’.

Tips included making sure their testimony was ‘highly detailed and consistent’, and it would be best if they built ‘as strong a case as possible’ to be successful in gaining refugee status.

The coaching even includes how applicants should explain how their identity within the LGBT community was formed and differs from cultural norms in their home country.

Also included are examples of the type of documents that the Home Office accepts as supporting evidence, which is described as helping ‘strengthen asylum claims’.

The topic of asylum seekers weaponising compassionate British law by pretending to be gay has been raised by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who has taken the extraordinary step of issuing a warning to the Home Office. 

His human rights group, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, used to receive only a handful of small personal donations online each week.

All of a sudden, however, this has soared to up to 30 a day, accompanied by a similar surge in the numbers signing up for a weekly newsletter.

The donations all come from men from Pakistan, which is the nation with the largest number of claimants in the world.

It appears, he told the Mail, some may have been collating documentary evidence of their contact with the group in a bid to back up their asylum claims. However, he said there was ‘no proof of wrong-doing’ and that ‘asylum fraud is rare’.

Mr Tatchell told MailOnline: ‘Asylum applicants have to provide credible evidence they are LGBT+, such as love letters, photos with partners, evidence of active involvement with LGBT+ organisations and campaigns.

‘They also need to provide detailed evidence of the homophobic persecution they suffered: newspaper reports about what happened to them, police reports of their arrest, court documents citing their charges and sentence, etc.

‘It would be very difficult to fake or forge these requirements. Online guidance cannot produce medical reports that confirm a LGBT+ person has been tortured or a police report documenting their arrest.’

Mr Tatchell believes part of the rise in LGBT+ asylum applicants is due to increased homophobic repression in many countries in 2022-23, such as the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan and Putin’s issuing of new harsh laws in Russia. 

In December, the Mail on Sunday revealed how a Jamaican man who raped a sleeping woman at a party had been allowed to stay after his lawyers argued he was bisexual and would be put at risk if deported.

In that case, the Home Office said that, since his arrival here 23 years ago, there was zero evidence of bisexuality, only of relationships with women.

Even so, the tribunal judge bizarrely accepted he was likely to have been bisexual and blocked his deportation – a decision later upheld when the Home Office appealed to the upper tribunal judges.

And two years ago Saheed Azeez, from Nigeria, won asylum after claiming to be gay – despite having three children by three women.

Saheed Azeez, from Nigeria (pictured), won asylum after claiming to be gay – despite having three children by three women

Mr Mehmet added: ‘Why have those who have made their way to the UK illegally from the other side of the Channel not claimed asylum in France or elsewhere in the EU? 

‘And why do migrants who have been here for years only claim asylum at the point of having to leave? 

‘As Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, has implied, perhaps some asylum seekers and their legal representatives are only too ready to grab any loophole they find.’

In September 2023, the then Tory home secretary Suella Braverman said that some asylum seekers ‘purport to be homosexual in the effort to game our system, in the effort to get special treatment’. She added: ‘That’s not fair and it’s not right.’

It led to her being castigated by some gay groups for making what they described as ‘deeply disturbing’ comments which, they said, ‘question the legitimacy of LGBTQI+ people claiming asylum in the UK’.

Many Left-wing pressure groups and other woke advocates refuse to countenance the possibility that any claim based on homosexuality could be fictional and depict any attempt to address such abuse as being reactionary or even homophobic.

A Home Office spokesperson said ‘Every asylum claim is assessed on its individual merits, and decision-makers receive thorough training to ensure genuine cases are treated fairly. 

‘A strong system of safeguards and quality checks supports this process, helping to ensure all claims are properly reviewed and decisions are reliable.

‘We take any abuse of the immigration system extremely seriously. Where there is evidence of wrongdoing, we will take firm action to challenge it and protect the integrity of our borders.’

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