Home Office used ‘AI hallucinated’ information to refuse asylum claim, judge suggests
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 No CPIN on Morocco has been published since 2017; when questioned, the Home Office instead produced an unpublished internal document, never disclosed during proceedings, which noted 40,000 child marriage exemptions granted in Morocco in 2018 and highlighted that marital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.
In short
- 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
Explained simply
A Moroccan woman and her child sought asylum in Britain, saying she had fled forced marriage as a teenager and ongoing abuse by her husband, a man with previous criminal convictions. To reject their asylum claim, the Home Office cited an official document stating that Morocco was safe enough for them to return to.
Asylum decisions typically hinge on whether it is safe for someone to go back to their home country, so officials use government documents to support assessments on this crucial question. The document cited in this case is now under scrutiny, with questions about whether it actually exists in published form or what its underlying basis is.
If asylum officials rely on documents that cannot be verified or located, it raises fundamental issues about the reliability of the assessment process and the fairness of rejections. Such concerns are particularly acute when decisions affect vulnerable people fleeing violence or persecution.
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