Asylum Claims from Kuwait Double in Four Years as Fraud Scripts Circulate

A Telegraph investigation uncovers smuggling gangs distributing 25-page guides on Telegram, coaching migrants to fabricate Bidoon identities for UK asylum. These documents, scripted in Arabic, supply rehearsed answers on Kuwaiti history, police car colors, and statelessness narratives—even for non-Bidoons. Home Office acceptance rates for such claims climbed from 41 percent to 81 percent between 2021 and 2025, despite decade-old warnings of systemic abuse.

The Bidoon designation targets a real stateless group in Kuwait, Arabs denied citizenship since 1961 independence. Undocumented Bidoons face documented persecution risks, qualifying them under the Refugee Convention as a protected social group. Yet the guides exploit this by advising claimants to deny birth certificates, passports, or official papers, while fabricating journeys from Kuwait—regardless of actual nationality.

Kuwaiti asylum applications totaled 5,272 from mid-2021 to mid-2025, nearly double the 2,874 over the prior two decades. Stateless claims overall surged from 287 to 1,418 in the year to June 2025, with approvals hitting 92.1 percent—a record against the 2010s average of 43.1 percent. This spike coincides with the guides’ emergence, mirroring phrases from a 2024 Guardian report on Calais migrants.

Verification Cracks Exposed

Home Office policy demands proof of genuine statelessness, lack of documentation, and harm risks, explicitly noting fakes from Iraq or elsewhere. A 2023 tribunal rejected an Iraqi claimant’s Bidoon story after he admitted Iraqi origins en route through Europe. Still, surges persist, suggesting checks like biometrics, language analysis, and interviews fail to filter coached falsehoods at scale.

Investigations trace fraud back to 2014, when Jordan alerted Britain to Iraqis posing as Bidoons. A Home Office probe with Jordanian, Kuwaiti, and US authorities uncovered forged birth and marriage certificates from phantom imams, implausible Kuwait knowledge, and sponsors using Iraqi identities for US visas. The report confirmed “a pattern of immigration abuse,” yet no comprehensive overhaul followed—claims kept rising.

Eleven of 120 checked UK-based Bidoon sponsors held prior Iraqi visa applications in Amman. Kuwaiti probes invalidated certificates absent from official registers. These findings invalidated multiple granted asylum cases, but the system’s response remained piecemeal, allowing the loophole to widen over a decade.

Policy Inertia Across Borders

Reforms promised in 2024 aim to strip incentives for illegal entry and speed deportations. Officials cite tools like fingerprinting and detailed interviews to verify identities. Yet data shows these measures correlate with higher approvals, not fewer frauds—evidencing a gap between stated safeguards and operational reality.

This pattern echoes broader asylum processing breakdowns. Net migration hit 944,000 in 2024, with 1.3 million foreign nationals on Universal Credit amid unchecked inflows. Cross-party governments since 2010 pledged border control, but verification failures recur, from small boat surges to identity gaming.

Fraud benefits smugglers and false claimants, while taxpayers fund housing, benefits, and backlogged appeals—straining resources for genuine refugees. Ordinary citizens face diluted public services and eroded trust in institutions meant to enforce rules. The Home Office’s deportation vows ring hollow against persistent surges.

UK asylum adjudication, once rigorous post-1990s reforms, now incentivizes deception through outdated policies and under-resourced checks. This Bidoon loophole exemplifies how institutional inertia across administrations fosters uncontrolled entry, deepening social strains and economic burdens. Britain’s border integrity frays not from external pressures alone, but from internal failures to adapt and enforce.