An Albanian man who sought asylum in the UK on the grounds of facing discrimination as a gay man in his home country has had a second asylum application rejected after he married a woman.
Esmir Debaj first sought asylum, saying he would face persecution for his sexual orientation in Albania. Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), persecution based on sexual orientation is a valid reason for getting an asylum application approved.
After his first claim was denied, he returned to his country of origin in the spring of 2023. Debaj then applied a second time—this time, on the grounds that he wanted to join his new wife in the UK after, he claimed, his sexuality had changed. The application was denied, but the Albanian appealed the decision.
A UK immigration tribunal judge said the fact that Debaj was “currently in a committed heterosexual relationship” did not mean his earlier claim of being a homosexual was “untrue” as “experience shows that sexuality is a spectrum.”
The tribunal, however, found that his heterosexual marriage overlapped with his initial gay asylum claim and therefore deemed his applications a “deliberate attempt” to deceive the Home Office. The judge said Debaj had “contrived in a significant way to frustrate the intention of the immigration rules” and rejected his asylum claim.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper last week announced plans to limit judges’ ability to block deportations by introducing new legally binding “common sense” rules. These rules aim to clarify how the ECHR is interpreted and to reinforce the importance of the public interest in such decisions.
