Migrants are falsely alleging they are domestic abuse victims of unsuspecting British partners so they can claim asylum in the UK. 

Rogue lawyers are charging £900 to help migrants, both male and female, to fabricate domestic abuse claims to fast track a permanent stay in Britain. 

They are exploiting Home Office rules which allow migrants who are victims of domestic abuse and are living in the UK on a temporary visa as a partner to stay in the UK for three months. 

During this time, they can apply for indefinite leave to remain, when usually this would take at least five years for someone living and working in the UK. 

A BBC investigation uncovered one lawyer charging £900 to dupe the Home Office into letting clients stay in the country. 

Eli Ciswaka, who operates under the company Corporate Immigration UK, told an undercover reporter he would fabricate a story about his pretend wife ‘mentally abusing’ him.

Ciswaka was secretly filmed telling the BBC journalist that he would present the case as ‘psychological domestic abuse’, like ‘when someone is playing with your mind’.

He claimed the reporter’s ‘wife’ would not be affected and would not be questioned by police as ‘there is no crime’. 

But another woman told the BBC how she was arrested by police after her ex-husband, who was reliant on her for his visa, accused her of domestic abuse. 

Eli Ciswaka was secretly filmed charging an undercover reporter £900 to fabricate domestic abuse claims to help in stay in Britain

Ciswaka later showed the reporter a Home Office letter sent to him on behalf of a client, proving another client had been successful through the domestic abuse concession

Aisha, not her real name, met the Pakistani national on a Muslim dating app during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the relationship soured after they were married. 

‘He became fully controlling, very abusive. He started demanding that he wanted a baby in the country,’ she told the BBC, adding she was also raped. 

After deciding to leave the marriage, she reported her partner’s abuse to the police and the Home Office. Officials then wrote to him, warning his visa would expire without the support of his spouse.

However, the man then fabricated his own domestic abuse claims, which led to Aisha’s arrest in January 2023. 

She claimed to have eight hours away from her baby, who she was breastfeeding at the time, and ‘wanted to end my life’ when she got home. 

Aisha accused the Home Office of ‘allowing this to happen’, adding ‘I’ve suffered four years of hell because of the Home Office.’

Jabran Hussain, a criminal lawyer based in Bradford, said some of his client’s lives had been ‘turned upside down’ following similar experiences. 

‘This route was well-intended and it was there to protect some of the most vulnerable in society – victims of domestic violence,’ he told the BBC. 

‘But I think there’s certain people out there that see it OK to abuse that for their own gain or to get settlement here fast-track.’

Ciswaka runs an instagram page under the name Corporate Immigration UK, where he boasts about helping clients stay in the UK through the domestic abuse concession

Ciswaka told the undercover reporter he would fabricate a story about his pretend wife ‘mentally abusing’ him

Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips said: ‘The unacceptable abuse of this route, which protects genuine victims from the devastation of domestic abuse, is utterly shameful. 

‘I have personally seen the deplorable impact of this type of underhanded tactic.

‘Let me be clear: try to defraud the British people to remain in the UK and your application will be refused, and you will find yourself on a one-way flight out of Britain.

‘Sham lawyers facilitating this advice abuse will be put behind bars and their dirty money seized will be reinvested to shut down the crime they once bankrolled.’

Ciswaka was contacted for comment. When approached by the BBC he denied being willing to make up a story that the undercover reporter had been a victim of domestic abuse.

Figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request showed that 5,596 migrants applied for indefinite leave to remain as victims of domestic abuse from September 2024 to 2025.

Of these, 1,424 were made by men, which represents a 66 per cent increase compared with the same period two years earlier.

The same BBC investigation yesterday exposed a shadowy network of asylum experts charging up to £7,000 to coach migrants whose visas are running out how to pose as gay.

They are providing clients with cover stories and telling them how to falsify evidence, including supporting letters, photos from LGBT nightclubs and medical reports.

The migrants then claim asylum on the basis that they risk deadly persecution if they return to Pakistan or Bangladesh, where homosexual acts are illegal. 

Overall asylum claims topped 100,000 in 2025, of which 35 per cent were made by people whose student, work or tourist visas had expired – far outstripping small boat arrivals.

The number of asylum seekers claiming they need protection on the basis of their sexual orientation has rocketed in recent years to hit 2,133 in 2023. 

Pakistanis accounted for the most claims – 578 – followed by 175 from Bangladeshis and 103 from Nigerians. 

Earlier this year the Daily Mail revealed how one Cameroonian man who was granted asylum in Britain after claiming to be gay was later revealed to have a secret wife and child. 

Marius Kamna, 35, travelled to Britain on a temporary visa for the 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow before claiming asylum in the UK based on his sexuality. 

The asylum panel that granted him refugee status was never informed about his heterosexual marriage in Cameroon. 

However, Mr Kamna insisted it was his marriage that represented the deception, not his claim to be gay. 

‘I had so many secrets, I was persecuted,’ he said.

It follows a separate Mail investigation that exposed brazen Facebook fixers selling UK visas to illegal migrants for as little as £12,000. 

The bogus consultants who advertise on social media boast of using sham jobs, forged certificates and contrived payroll records to help dupe the authorities into accepting the applications.

Visas being peddled include for positions in care homes, warehouses and fast food restaurants – although in many cases the migrant does not have to do the job on arrival.