Azeeza's Story
October 2026
Background
Our immigration client was in a very difficult position when she came to us for assistance. She had claimed asylum in Northern Ireland along with her husband and children some time prior. As typically happens, the husband was treated as the ‘lead’ applicant and our client as his dependent. Then, due to domestic abuse, our client had to flee the asylum accommodation she shared with her family. Her husband and children were subsequently granted refugee status. In contrast, our client’s asylum claim was deemed to be ‘withdrawn’. This put her in an extremely precarious position: without a live asylum claim, she was at risk of immigration enforcement and had no entitlement to any financial support.
What we did
We gathered extensive evidence of the domestic abuse and made urgent representations to the Home Office, requesting that our client’s asylum claim be reinstated and examined in its own right.
The outcome
Thankfully, the Home Office agreed to reinstate our client’s asylum claim. This enabled her to present evidence of her own protection needs, which resulted in her being granted refugee status.
Significance of this case
The significance of this case extends beyond the individual outcome. First, we were able to share the case study with the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which is researching the issue of ‘withdrawn’ asylum claims. The researchers noted that this case evidences how immigration procedures can be exploited as a form of coercive control in domestic abuse scenarios.