Runnymede Trust has recently published an exhaustive analysis of 52,990 news articles and 317 House of Commons debates on immigration between 2019 and 2024, finding that the word ‘illegal’ remains the number one term associated with ‘immigrants’ in public discourse. The use of ‘illegal’ in this context is racialised, broadly associating non-white asylum seekers with criminality, as well as blaming asylum seekers for government austerity measures. As pointed out in June 2025 submissions to Parliament, ‘fake news’ (some of it AI-generated) fomented far-right violence throughout 2024 and 2025, albeit facilitated by ‘mainstream media already legitimising and mainstreaming racist, xenophobic ideas, tropes and conspiracy theories’. In this context, Zoe Bantleman, legal director of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, recently observed that ‘immigration and asylum law has become sensationalised and distorted’.
‘Fake law’ has become an annoyingly stubborn subset of fake news—and as lawyers we need to be doing more to set the record straight. Specifically we should resist the way ‘illegal immigrant’ has increasingly been legitimised as a synonym for asylum seekers arriving irregularly. Despite its ubiquity in mainstream discussions of law and policy, ‘iIllegal immigrant’ is not a term of art and does not appear in any legislation. It is not illegal to claim asylum.
Generally speaking for those without right of abode, entering the UK without permission (entry clearance) is designated as ‘illegal entry’ under the Immigration Act 1971. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 rebrands entry without permission as ‘unlawful migration’ in section 1. However, where a right exists in law, is permission necessary? The 99% of people arriving on small boats who claim asylum are exercising their right to do so under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Should any attempt be made to prosecute an asylum seeker for illegal entry, the burden would fall on the prosecution to establish that the person was not a refugee or an asylum seeker claiming in good faith.
The non-penalisation clause in Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention (prohibiting signatories from penalising asylum seekers for their mode of arrival where there is ‘good cause’) has been incorporated into domestic law via section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The same principle has also been embedded in case law such as Adimi [1991] and Mateta [2013]. Those arriving from France (or another safe country) could potentially be found to have inadmissible claims, but only if it would have been ‘reasonable’ for them to claim asylum in that safe third country per section 80C of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. As set out at paragraph 21 of Mateta, ‘the fact a refugee stopped in a third country in transit is not necessarily fatal and may be explicable: the refugee has some choice as to where he might properly claim asylum’.
As ILPA has pointed out, calling people ‘illegal’ puts lives in danger. When the law is distorted and our clients demonised, lawyers and judges are put at risk as well, as set out in a recent Gazette piece. Challenging fake law and other myths around asylum seekers is no longer the purview of immigration specialists, but rather something that concerns all lawyers.
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