The Home Office is urgently investigating the status of an Afghan refugee who was granted asylum but later posted pictures of himself on holiday in his home country.
The man, who goes by the name DG Usama, arrived in Britain in April 2022, having crossed the Channel by dinghy. According to The Sun, he told UK asylum officials that his Taliban-controlled homeland was too dangerous to return to.
However, he went on to post videos and photos on social media from Afghanistan over eight weeks last summer.
It is not clear when he was granted asylum but it was before his holiday, according to the newspaper.
Home Office rules state that refugees with a travel document “can usually travel to all countries except the country you’re from [and] any country you sought asylum from”.
Foreign Office travel advice warns Britons not to travel to Afghanistan because the security situation is volatile.
In a video posted in 2022, Usama documented his crossing from Calais wearing a red lifejacket issued by people smugglers. In one clip, captioned “Alhamdulillah [praise be to God] now I am in UK”, he is rescued by an RNLI boat.
Usama posted photos of himself crossing the Channel and being rescued by an RNLI boat, below
In 2023, Usama posted on social media from various London landmarks, including Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, Brighton beach and the white cliffs of Dover.
The following summer, he shared six videos of a holiday he took back in Afghanistan, including a boat trip on the Band-e-Amir, a natural park in the Hindu Kush mountains known as the nation’s “Blue Heart”.
He also showed a convoy of Lexus and Toyota cars on a road trip in the picturesque Takhar, in northwest Afghanistan.
On his return flight to Britain, he posted a video of himself landing in Dubai airport with the caption: “Back to UK.” He then posted from Rotherhithe in southeast London, proving that he had arrived.
The Home Office said that it had launched an urgent investigation into Usama.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow home secretary, told the newspaper: “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?”
Usama has also posted from the French cities of Paris, Calais and Annecy, and passed through Switzerland and Bulgaria, where he participated in pro-Afghanistan marches at around the same time as the Taliban retook control of Kabul in 2021.
So far in 2025, 32,190 asylum seekers have crossed the Channel — a record number for this time of year.