Law firms are charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay so they can stay in the UK, a BBC investigation has found. The Telegraph has more.
Migrants whose visas have run out are being provided with fake cover stories and guided on how to obtain fabricated evidence such as letters, photographs and medical reports.
They then apply for asylum claiming to be gay, which they say would put them at risk of persecution if they were to return to Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Pakistan and Bangladesh have the highest numbers of asylum claimants who originally came to Britain on visitor, student or work visas before switching to claim refugee protection to remain in the country.
Nearly 10,000 Pakistanis entered the country with temporary visitor, work or student visas before switching in 2024 to claim asylum in an attempt to secure permanent residency in the UK, according to Government data. They were followed by Indians and Bangladeshis.
The new disclosures, revealed by a BBC investigation, is likely to intensify demands for Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, to impose a visa ban on Pakistan over its failure to take back rejected asylum seekers.
Pakistan accounts for one in 10 of all asylum seekers but just 4% of those whose claims are rejected are returned to the country.
The Telegraph revealed on Monday how migrants were lying about their nationality to gain asylum. We disclosed how an Iraqi migrant falsely claimed to be a member of a stateless minority group in Kuwait to boost his chances of securing asylum in the UK.
In response to the BBC findings, the Home Office said: “Anyone found trying to exploit the system will face the full force of the law, including removal from the UK.”
The fake gay scam involved migrants whose student, work or tourist visas had expired. This group comprises 35% of all 100,000 asylum claims – and is on par with the number claiming protection after arriving on small boats across the Channel.
The BBC investigation found law firms were charging up to £7,000 to bring a fabricated asylum claim and promised that the chance of refusal by the Home Office was “very low”.
Fake asylum seekers visited GPs pretending to be depressed to get medical evidence to bolster their cases, with one even lying about being HIV positive.
One immigration adviser boasted that she had spent more than 17 years helping bring fake claims and said she could arrange for someone to pretend they’d had a gay sexual relationship with a client.
A BBC undercover reporter was told he could bring his wife over from Pakistan once he had been granted asylum in the UK and she could then make a fake claim pretending to be a lesbian.
A lawyer linked to another firm told an undercover reporter he had helped people pretend to be gay or an atheist to successfully obtain asylum. He offered to help with a fake claim for a fee of £1,500 and said it would cost a further £2,000-£3,000 to create evidence.
Worth reading in full.
Kudos to the BBC for uncovering this. But why has it taken a media organisation to investigate such widespread fraud and criminal wrongdoing? Where are the police and the Home Office?
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I predict that Mahmood will not impose a visa ban on Pakistan. I can’t think why ……
I found the following info – ‘Law firms often face disrepute due to serious misconduct investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) or Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).The SDT has the power to fine, suspend, or strike off solicitors, with many cases arising from actions that damage public confidence”
The Law Firms in question need to be struck off
It raise the obvious question of how else lawyers are helping people lie to get asylum?
Are the encouraging people from Muslim countries to pretend to have converted to Christianity, claim to be children when they’re over 18 or invent social media posts criticising an oppressive regime in their country of origin as a few obvious ways people could falsely claim asylum.
When will these legal scumbags be facing long jail terms or are they able to benefit from the Two Tier justice system because they have not long been here?
Don’t they realise the UK is an impoverished shithole?
Can’t they go to north Korea or somewhere?
What? No, surely not? Not the full force?
Also, how can the Home Office or any of its flunkies decide to what extent ‘the law’ will be enforced? Surely that will be up to the CPS and the courts? If not charged they can’t be found guilty of anything. If tried, they’ll likely be found not guilty. If found guilty they’ll be found to have misunderstood what was going on.
The main surprise for me is that it was the BBC of all organisations which exposed this!
Am I being too cynical in foreseeing a future case in which a ‘gay’ male asylum seeker is charged with multiple counts of raping women and girls? Doubtless he could then successfully resist deportation on the grounds that he was a victim, on account of not being in control of his aberrant sexuality.
Not just women and girls. I’m not sure sexual orientation is relevant when it comes to beastiality, and let’s be honest, they’re not shy about doing this back in their home countries so they’re sure as hell not going to magically transform into civilized men and leave such degenerate behaviour back in the third world, are they? That’s naivety on steroids.
But this has been reported in various countries over the years and we had a couple of Turks arrested in separate incidents here in the Netherlands after they were caught on camera assaulting various animals in petting zoos. And I await an update on Rosi the cat in Italy who is recovering from being brutalized in this manner. 🙁
”A 19-year-old Afghan national has been arrested and charged following a series of brutal sexual attacks on goats and sheep in Pennes-Mirabeau, a municipality in Bouches-du-Rhône, near Marseille.
The suspect was taken into custody by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) on the night of April 9-10, 2026, after local sheep and goat owners alerted police. Since early 2026, several owners had discovered their animals injured, with incidents reported in both February and March. The animals had their legs tied and showed… Read more »
We’ve known about the system being gamed for years.
No surprise here. Our wonderful Human Rights Lawyers have to earn a crust somehow.