Failed asylum seeker can stay in UK – because she joined terror group
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Nigerian woman who tried and failed eight times to secure asylum in Britain was finally granted the right to stay after joining a terrorist organisation just to boost her claim.
The judge who gave the 49-year-old woman the right to stay acknowledged that she was not being honest about her political beliefs and had become involved with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) only “in order to create a claim for asylum ”.
The woman, who came to the UK in 2011, joined IPOB in 2017. A separatist group that has been blamed for acts of violence against the Nigerian state , it has been banned as a terrorist organisation by Nigeria but is not proscribed in the UK.
Upper tribunal judge Gemma Loughran ruled that the asylum seeker’s activities on behalf of the group meant she had a “well-founded fear of persecution” under human rights laws due to her “imputed” political opinion.
The disclosure in court documents, seen by The Telegraph, is the latest immigration case in which migrants have used human rights laws to halt their deportation or win the right to live in the UK.
It is the fourth case exposed by The Telegraph this week. Previous examples include an Albanian criminal who avoided deportation after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets and a Pakistani paedophile who was jailed for child sex offences but escaped removal from the UK as it would be “unduly harsh” on his own children.
On Wednesday, the issues raised by the cases dominated Prime Minister’s Questions, with Sir Keir Starmer branding as “wrong” another tribunal decision that allowed a Palestinian family to come to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme for Ukrainian refugees.
He said Parliament, not judges, should make the rules on immigration and pledged Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, would work on closing the loophole.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the Nigerian case was “patently absurd”.
“This shows judges are inventing new and comically ludicrous interpretations of vague European Convention on Human Rights’ (ECHR) articles in order to allow foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to stay in the country,” he said.
“This is an abuse of the power judges have been given .
“It is clear to me that a radical overhaul of human rights law is needed in order to end this abuse by the judiciary – who have taken for themselves what amounts to legislative powers.”
It follows controversy over some asylum seekers converting to Christianity to boost their cases, or making false claims about their sexuality.
The Nigerian woman, who was granted anonymity, submitted eight different appeals against a rejection of her right to remain in the UK. They ranged from claims under ECHR Article Eight, which guarantees a right to a family life, to assertions she was a victim of trafficking.
They were all rejected over a 10-year period.
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This is the kind of insanity we were heading for if Harris won. The UK is a like an alternate reality horror show of what could have happened.