Sex Offenders to Be Barred From Getting Asylum

Other plans include the introduction of a 24-week target for first-tier immigration tribunals to decide on appeals for those receiving accommodation support.

A Border Force vessel brings in a group of illegal migrants following a small boat incident in the English Channel in Dover, Kent, on Feb. 25, 2024. Gareth Fuller/PA Media

Sex offenders will be barred from gaining asylum in the UK, in new measures announced by the government.

Under the U.N.’s Refugee Convention, countries can refuse asylum to terrorists, war criminals, or persons convicted of “particularly serious” crimes and who are a danger to the community. In the UK, this is defined as someone sentenced to at least 12 months in prison.

On Monday, the Home Office said it plans to update this definition to include anyone convicted of an offence which places them on the sex offenders register, regardless of the length of time of their sentence. This means that asylum seekers who are sex offenders will be denied refugee status.

Announcing the plans, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Sex offenders who pose a risk to the community should not be allowed to benefit from refugee protections in the UK. We are strengthening the law to ensure these appalling crimes are taken seriously.”

Cooper added: “Nor should asylum seekers be stuck in hotels at the taxpayers’ expense during lengthy legal battles. That is why we are changing the law to help clear the backlog, end the use of asylum hotels and save billions of pounds for the taxpayer.”

AI Used to Speed Up Decision-Making

The measures will be tabled as part of the government’s Border, Security, and Asylum Bill, which is currently going through the report stage in the House of Commons.

Other plans announced on Monday include the introduction of a 24-week target for first-tier immigration tribunals to decide on appeals for those receiving accommodation support, or for those who are foreign national offenders.

Currently, there is no timeframe in which courts must consider these cases. According to the Home Office, appeals to the Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber take on average 50 weeks to process.

AI will also be used to speed up the decision-making of asylum claims, which the department says will stop asylum seekers “being stuck in limbo at the taxpayers’ expense, delivering quicker answers to those in need and removal of those with no right to be here.”

Caseworkers will be able to use AI to summarise interview transcripts and speed up access to relevant country advice. The Home Office says it could save caseworkers an hour for every application they process, “without compromising on the quality of human decisions.”

The ECHR

Asked how many asylum seekers this will affect every year, Cooper told Times Radio on Tuesday that while the Home Office does not publish such figures, she was aware of “particularly awful cases” where sex offenders had been granted asylum.

She highlighted the case of Abdul Ezedi, who in 2024 attacked a woman and her two children with acid in Clapham. Ezedi had arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry in 2016 and was granted asylum in 2020 despite having committed a series of sex offences that resulted in him being put on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

He had been granted asylum after claiming to have converted to Christianity, on grounds his life would be in danger if he was returned to his native Afghanistan.

“I think it is a disgrace that he was granted asylum protection in the UK, and that’s why we are strengthening the law to prevent convicted sex offenders from getting asylum protection in this country,” Cooper said.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper speaking at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House in central London, on March 31, 2025. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

But when asked whether the government can stop sex offenders from then using the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to halt their deportations, Cooper suggested that currently, those measures could still be used to block removals.

“There are often other obstacles that are put in the way of different kinds of returns and removals, but that’s why we’re working so hard to seek to remove those,” the home secretary said.

She added, “The first step is to remove somebody’s entitlement to asylum protection in the first place if they have committed these serious crimes.”

Right to Family Life

Currently, the government is undertaking a review of the use of Article 8 of the ECHR—the right to a private and family life—which has been used in immigration cases to block removals.

Cooper told Times Radio that she believed it was possible the change the way that article is interpreted.

She said: “In practice, what’s happening is it’s partly about the way in which our laws are operating.

“It’s all about the way in which—I think—that there’s been a bit of an abdication of responsibility to set down the way in which our laws should operate, and too much has been left to ad hoc decisions by the courts.”

“That review is underway, at the moment. We will bring forward the conclusions,” she said.