Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests

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Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests

The Guardian · 3 hours ago

A senior immigration judge has suggested the Home Office relied on "AI hallucinated" information to reject the asylum claim of a Moroccan woman and her child, who had fled forced underage marriage and violent abuse. The Home Office cited a supposedly authoritative "country policy information note" (CPIN) confirming Morocco was safe for her, but the upper tribunal found no such document appears to exist, raising serious concerns about the reliability of decision-making in asylum cases and prompting the judge to describe the failing as potentially "extremely serious".

The woman had claimed asylum fearing she would be killed by her husband, a powerful, previously convicted criminal, after suffering rape and forced marriage as a minor. A first-tier tribunal judge rejected her appeal partly on the strength of the CPIN, but the upper tribunal, in a ruling on 14 July, found the document could not be located and said relying on it was "analogous to relying on bogus evidence". No CPIN on Morocco has been published since 2017; when questioned, the Home Office instead produced an unpublished internal document, never disclosed during proceedings, which noted 40,000 child marriage exemptions granted in Morocco in 2018 and highlighted that marital rape is not explicitly criminalised there.

  • Judge suspects Home Office used AI-hallucinated evidence to reject asylum claim
  • Cited document confirming Morocco's safety may never have existed
  • Undisclosed internal note actually described risks to women, not safety

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