The Home Office has launched an urgent investigation into reports a small boat Afghan migrant who settled in London went on holiday to Kabul months after being granted asylum in the UK.
The man, who goes by the name DG Usama, arrived in the UK in April 2022 on a dinghy across the Channel.
He claimed he was a refugee from Afghanistan and told British asylum officials that he had been forced to flee his dangerous Taliban-controlled homeland, according to The Sun.
But last summer he posted videos and photos that appeared to be from an eight-week long holiday to Afghanistan on his social media accounts.
It is not clear when he was granted asylum, but it was before his trip, the Sun reported.
Home Office rules state that refugees “can usually travel to all countries except the country you’re from [or] any country you sought asylum from”.
The Foreign Office advises Britons not to travel to Afghanistan because the security situation in the country.
In a video posted in 2022, Usama appeared to document his small crossing from Calais wearing a lifejacket issued by people smugglers and being rescued by a RNLI boat.
The following year he posted pictures from various landmarks in the capital, including Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf, and appears to have settled in southeast London.
In summer 2024 he shared several videos of a holiday he took back in Afghanistan, including a boat trip on the Band-e-Amir, a nature park in the Hindu Kush mountains.
He also posted images of what appears to be a road trip taken in northwest Afghanistan.
Usama then seemed to share a video of himself landing in Dubai airport with the caption: “Back to UK" before sending out a picture of himself in Rotherhithe, London.
Shadow home secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Illegal migrants like this must be laughing at how naive the government are.
“He should never have been allowed back into the UK after he apparently holidayed in Afghanistan. If Germany are regularly removing illegal migrants from Afghanistan back home, why aren’t we?”
