Iraqi Channel migrant avoids deportation over lost ID

The man, who arrived in the UK illegally by small boat, was previously refused asylum in Italy and Sweden

An illegal Channel migrant refused asylum in Italy and Sweden has avoided deportation from the UK after claiming he lost his ID documents.
The Iraqi, who has been granted anonymity, entered Britain by small boat in 2021, after being refused sanctuary on the continent. He sought asylum on the basis that his life was at risk in Iraq from a Shia militia he had refused to assist.
A UK immigration judge said the Iraqi had “sought to embellish his case by claiming that the militia continued to have an adverse interest in him” and rejected his asylum claim.
However, a judge in an upper tribunal overruled that verdict because of errors in law, and after being told that the Iraqi claimed he could not safely return to his home country because he lacked identity documents.
It is common for illegal migrants to claim they cannot be returned to their home country because of the lack of official ID which would mean they would have trouble re-establishing their nationality in their country of origin.
The judge ordered the case to be sent back to the first tribunal to be reconsidered, preventing any immediate removal of the Iraqi back to his home country.
The case comes after the number of migrants crossing the Channel so far this year overtook the total number of arrivals last year. Some 29,867 have reached the UK in small boats in 2024, up 12 per cent on the 26,605 at the same point last year.
On Wednesday a 28-year-old migrant died while trying to cross the Channel, bringing the number of small boat deaths this year to 57, compared with 12 for the whole of last year.
Iraqis are one of the top three nationalities crossing the Channel in small boats. Since 2018, they have accounted for 13.2 per cent of all arrivals, behind people from Afghanistan (14.7 per cent) and Iran (18.5 per cent).
The unnamed Iraqi entered the UK by small boat on May 11 2021, having been unsuccessful in claiming asylum in Sweden and Italy. He sought asylum in the UK the same day on the basis that his life was at risk in Iraq from a Shia militia.
However, the Home Office refused the asylum claim on the basis that his account of persecution was “not credible”.
An appeal was rejected as the judge was not “not satisfied that he was of continuing interest to the militia” even though they had shot him after he refused to work for them. However, the upper tribunal has now backed the Iraqi’s appeal.
The case is among a series of controversial decisions revealed in the past month. The Telegraph reported on Tuesday that a Zimbabwean jailed for killing a man in a car crash has been allowed to live in the UK under the European Convention of Human Rights after it was discovered he had an illicit love child.
It also emerged this week that an Indian-born criminal overturned a deportation order by claiming it would harm his children – even though he was a convicted paedophile.
The Telegraph revealed at the weekend that a Syrian armed bank robber jailed for 12 years has won the right to live in Britain after claiming that deportation would breach his human rights by putting him at risk of persecution.