Thread by @robdn

Analysis of Home Office data by #LibDems:
Tory government has sent 3,071 LGBTQ+ asylum seekers back to countries where homosexuality is criminalised since 2017.

pinknews.co.uk/2022/08/25/asy…

There were 415 LGB asylum applications lodged in the UK in 2021, 77 per cent fewer than in 2019. Total asylum applications rose by 36 per cent in the same period.

Over 100 of successful applications for asylum were from LGB people fleeing Pakistan, which criminalises LGBTQ+ people. In Pakistan the maximum penalty is life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Other LGBs granted asylum were from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Iran, Uganda and Iraq.

Of the 3,071 LGBTQ+ asylum seekers sent back since 2017: 1,048 were Pakistanis; 570 Bangladeshis who can face life in prison for having sex; and 381 Nigerians who face over a decade in prison or death for same-sex acts.

Lib Dem home affairs spokes Alistair Carmichael said the government must do all it can to “help people who are forced to flee violence and persecution simply for who they are and who they love”.

A Home Office spokes told PinkNews that every asylum case is “considered on a case-by-case basis” and that “no one is removed unless it is safe for them to do so”.

That is simply untrue - 'safe' to be persecuted or killed when interrogated on return as UK guards hand them over?

Hostile environment preventing refugees trying to find safety in UK?
The founder and CEO of LGBTQ+ asylum charity Micro Rainbow, told PinkNews he was “surprised” to see the number of LGB asylum seekers drop as his charity sees "an increase of requests for support year on year”.

The Tory government’s reviled Nationality and Borders Act will toughen Britain’s already stringent immigration process and criminalise those entering the country without a valid visa or via what the government called “irregular routes”.

Activists have opposed the Tory government’s Nationality and Borders Bill for imperilling LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. (Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty)