A HOME Office insider’s claims that just one in 100 asylum claims are genuine is an “exaggeration” that must have come from a “human lie detector”, according to a second Home Office insider.
On Monday, The Times led its front page with the opinion of a single Home Office worker who alleged that “at best 1 per cent of asylum seekers are genuine”.
The unnamed person – who was described as having assessed thousands of asylum claims over years as a decision-maker– said that it was a “running joke” that many people seeking to claim asylum had almost identical stories.
They alleged that a large number of Iraqi Kurds claimed to have been in a relationship with the prime minister’s daughter, that “hundreds” of Pakistani people claimed to be in a homosexual relationship with the same man, and that people from Bangladesh claimed to be linked to the now-banned Awami League political party.
However, another Home Office source – who also worked on thousands of claims over a period of years but recently left the department – told The National that it was “impossible” to know what percentage of claims were real.
“This guy must have cracked the code and be a human lie detector,” the source quipped. “He should be employed in our legal system so we can do away with judges and juries.”
They went on: “More seriously, yes there are ‘package claims’. Yes, you get the same claim again and again. His example of a Kurdistan prime minister’s daughter may be true – or at least a variation on this as honour killings are a common claim.
“However this person neglects to state that the risk is for the woman here and that would be a path for rejection for a man. Also, if the same claims are happening these should be reported to relevant intelligence bodies.”
Asked about the allegation that only one per cent of claims are genuine, they said it was “exaggeration on this person’s behalf”.
“They state they’ve worked on thousands of claims … This would suggest they’ve worked there for five-plus years. They also likely work in adults’ decisions due to the nationalities they mention.
“The chance that they know for certain that 1 in 100 are genuine is incredibly low. It’s impossible to put a number on it.”
The insider went on: “But talking numbers. Last year almost 6000 people from Sudan claimed asylum. That’s out of 101,000 that claimed in total. Sudan is an active war zone and very likely someone would get asylum/humanitarian protection because there is a genuine risk there. So that’s six in 100 likely to be genuine.”
Official Home Office figures show that 93% of people from Sudan who claimed asylum in the year ending March 2026 had their application approved. Eritrea, which had a slightly higher number of applicants at around 9000, had a rate of 87%.
In total, 39% of asylum applications were successful in the year ending March 2026.
The National’s source said that the asylum evidence cited by The Times’s insider “should be investigated along with the difference, shame, stigma, and harm model as required by law and policy”.
“If this person has accepted people’s claims on this basis, I would argue they aren’t very well trained,” they added.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on anonymous briefings.
“We have robust processes to test credibility and identify fraudulent claims. If any evidence of fraud or misrepresentation is discovered during the process, those individuals will have their claim revoked.
“This has seen the asylum grant rate falling from 77 per cent in 2022 to 38 per cent this year.”
