Mahmood promises action against 'sham lawyers' abusing asylum system
Watch: BBC investigation finds legal advisers are helping migrants pose as gay to get asylum
- Published
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has promised that "sham lawyers" who facilitate abuse of the asylum system "will face the full force of the law".
It comes after a BBC investigation revealed how law firms and advisers are charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay in order to stay in the UK.
The Home Office is investigating the individuals highlighted in the BBC's reporting as part of a wider investigation prompted by officials noticing a growing trend of fake claims from people pretending to be gay.
However, the Conservatives said the system "must be totally overhauled" so only those facing real personal persecution are granted asylum.
The BBC has uncovered how migrants whose visas are due to run out are being given fake cover stories and instructed in how to obtain fabricated evidence, including supporting letters, photographs and medical reports.
They then apply for asylum claiming to be gay and in fear for their lives if they return to Pakistan or Bangladesh.
The UK's asylum process offers protection to people who cannot return to their home countries because they would be in danger, for example in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh where gay sex is illegal.
But the BBC News investigation reveals the process is being systematically exploited by legal advisers extracting fees from migrants who want to stay in the country.
These are often people whose student, work or tourist visas have expired, rather than those who have just arrived in the country on small boats or through other illegal routes.
This group now makes up 35% of all asylum claims, which topped 100,000 in 2025.
The Immigration Fraudsters
An investigation exposes legal advisers cheating the immigration system.
Mahmood said: "Anyone abusing protections for people fleeing persecution over gender or sexual orientation is beyond contempt.
"Let me be clear: try to defraud the British people to enter or remain in the UK and your asylum claim will be refused, your support cut off, and you will find yourself on a one-way flight out of Britain.
"Sham lawyers facilitating this abuse will face the full force of the law."
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said it was urgently following up with all the firms it regulated which were identified in the BBC's reporting.
Jonathan Peddie, executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation at the SRA, said: "If we find evidence that anyone we regulate has acted in ways that contravene their duty to act legally and uphold the law, we will take action."
The Immigration Advice Authority, which regulates the sector, said it was assessing the evidence in the BBC's investigation and would pursue action against anyone found to be providing immigration advice illegally.
Labour MP Jo White, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee, called for the Home Office to stop issuing study visas to people from Pakistan, as it did last month for people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan over what it said was widespread visa abuse.
How many people are in asylum accommodation?
An asylum seeker is someone who wants to be in the UK because they say they cannot live safely in their own country due to persecution or violence.
The government must house an asylum seeker if they cannot financially support themselves while their claim is being considered. There were 89,089 people in asylum accommodation as of June 2026.
About 18% of those people, 16,021, were in hotels. These are used when there is not enough shared housing available, such as houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) or former military sites.
The government has pledged to stop the use of hotels by 2029.
More people are in hotels across the south of England than elsewhere in the UK, while HMOs are more common in the north of England and Scotland.
Numbers of asylum seekers in hotels by council area
How many people apply for asylum in the UK?
A total of 85,891 people applied for asylum in the UK from July 2025 to June 2026. This was down by 21% on the same period in the previous year.
Most people who arrive in the UK by small boat claim asylum, but they were only 40% of all asylum seekers from July 2025 to June 2026.
The rest include people who arrived by other illegal means or who came to the UK legally and applied for asylum while holding, or just after holding, a valid visa.
How big is the asylum backlog?
It can take years for the government to decide whether someone should be granted asylum.
In June 2026, 40,168 people - across 32,401 asylum applications - were waiting for an initial decision. The number of people awaiting an initial decision was down by 56% on the previous year.
As of March 2026, a further 87,450 refused asylum applications were part of a second backlog, waiting the outcome of an appeal in the courts. This was up by 72% on the previous year.
Together, these initial decision and appeal cases form the government’s total asylum applications backlog, which it has pledged to clear.
Refugee status was granted in about 38% of asylum decisions made by the Home Office from July 2025 to June 2026.
About 39% of asylum appeal cases concluded between April 2025 to March 2026 resulted in a previous refusal decision being overturned.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the BBC's investigation "exposes the scam at the heart of many asylum claims" and the legal advisers identified "should be prosecuted for immigration fraud".
Liberal Democrat immigration and asylum spokesman Will Forster said the BBC's findings were "abhorrent", adding: "We need an asylum system that is fair, controlled and efficient. Not the shambles the Conservatives left us with."
He called on the government to urgently investigate how widespread the issue was.
Welcoming the BBC investigation, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "There is an illegal immigration industry and there are many in the legal profession benefiting from this."
If Reform wins power, it has pledged to make facilitating a false asylum claim a "strict liability" criminal offence, meaning there would be no requirement to prove intent in prosecutions, which would be punishable by up to two years in jail.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: "It's disgusting to see these unscrupulous law firms taking advantage of people like this or taking advantage of a system like this."
He added that there was a wider issue of the government having "inconsistent policies", which create "perverse incentives for these kind of unscrupulous businesses and industries to pop up".
Shabana Mahmood said anyone abusing the system was "beyond contempt"
Aderonke Apata, who founded the African Rainbow Family charity, was granted asylum in the UK because she is a lesbian and could have faced the death penalty in Nigeria.
She said she was "appalled" by the BBC's findings, adding: "It dismisses the real struggle that we face as a community.
"And for genuine people who are seeking asylum and LGBTIQ people, this makes it extremely difficult for them to be able to be successful in their asylum claims."
The BBC has been contacted by several LGBT groups who said they had noticed an increasing number of people turning up to meetings who they suspect are making fake gay asylum claims.
Tom Guy, the founder of National Student Pride, said: "We've had people turning up... they take photos and they would leave. They weren't even staying for the event."
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, whose foundation helps people secure asylum on LGBT grounds, said the vast majority of claims were genuine and had gone through "a rigorous criterion".
However, he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme his foundation had been "swamped" by people from Pakistan claiming to be LGBT and seeking letters of recommendation.
Imran Hussain, from the Refugee Council charity, said it was "deplorable that unscrupulous advisers are exploiting desperate and vulnerable people for profit and those responsible must be held to account".
He added: "Every day in our frontline services we work with LGBTQ+ refugees from countries like Uganda and Pakistan who have faced imprisonment, violence and abuse simply for who they are, and who have come to Britain so they can live safely and openly.
"These kinds of abuses must not be used to undermine the credibility of people with genuine need for asylum."
It is difficult to know precisely how many asylum applications might be fabricated.
But Home Office statistics show that Pakistani nationals make up a disproportionate number of the claims made on the grounds of sexuality.
In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, some 42% of asylum claims with an LGBT element were made by Pakistani nationals and they accounted for the largest number of such claims in each of the five previous years.
In the same year, Pakistani nationals were only the fourth most common nationality for all asylum applications and accounted for just 6% of overall asylum applications.
Nearly two-thirds of asylum seekers claiming persecution on the basis of sexual orientation had their claims granted at the initial stage in 2023.
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