A BBC investigation has uncovered a number of individuals attached to legal firms who helped migrants fabricate false asylum claims based on being gay or LGBT.
The BBC investigation found that law firms and advisors were encouraging migrants, usually from Pakistan and Bangladesh, to claim they were gay to be allowed to stay in the UK after their current visas had expired.
One of the individuals featured in the report is paralegal Mazedul Hasan Shakil, who works at Law & Justice Solicitors, an immigration law firm based in Birmingham and London. Shakil is also the founder of Worster LGBT, where migrants were encouraged to gather to advance their claims of being gay, although admissions caught on camera from some of those in attendance revealed that almost nobody attached to the group was actually homosexual.
In 2016, Kenneth Udeh, a 22-year-old who had claimed asylum in Ireland based on being gay, was jailed for five years for raping a woman in Waterford. It was reported that the Nigerian man had come to Ireland in 2009 and had been refused asylum twice, but was in the midst of a fresh claim when the assault took place.
The BBC’s undercover reporter, who posed as a student whose visa was due to expire, was advised that he had to be fleeing persecution to claim asylum, but did not appear to be in that situation.
‘I am a gay and it is my reality’
Several hours after the call with Shakil, the reporter received another call from a woman named Tanisa Khan, who went on to...
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