Elderly Migrants Win Right to ‘Retire in Britain’ After Judges gave a Shocking Reason
Recent reports suggest that elderly migrants could soon become a major group seeking asylum in the UK. According to an investigation by The Telegraph, some older people are winning asylum cases because deporting them would violate their human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A Home Office whistleblower told the newspaper that a growing number of elderly individuals are using age, poor health, and emotional dependency as grounds to remain in the UK permanently.
In one case, a 61-year-old woman from China, who had previously been convicted of identity fraud, was granted asylum because she was considered too old to be sent back. Another case involved an 87-year-old widower from Syria who was allowed to join his son in Britain because he needed medical and personal care that was not available in his home country, where care homes are not part of the cultural norm.
A similar decision was made for a 71-year-old Pakistani man, Muhammad Ilyas Butt, who was allowed to stay in the UK after the court heard that he suffered from several health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, angina, back pain, anxiety, and depression. He also felt extremely lonely and isolated. The Home Office initially refused his application, saying that he could receive medical treatment in Pakistan. However, he appealed, providing medical reports to prove that he could not access the kind of healthcare he needed there.
Judge Elizabeth Ruddick from the Upper Tribunal said Mr. Butt had no close family left in Pakistan and became emotionally dependent on his children after his wife died in 2016. A clinical psychologist who visited him several times confirmed that his mental health had sharply declined since his wife’s death and that regular contact with his children improved both his emotional and physical well-being. The judge concluded that separating him from his family would severely harm his mental health, so he was allowed to remain in the UK.
These cases come as asylum applications hit record levels — over 111,000 between June 2024 and June 2025 — with more than 50,000 appeals currently being processed. Many of these appeals come from people who were initially denied asylum by the Home Office but later challenged the decisions in court.
However, not every elderly applicant has been successful. One example is 76-year-old Argentinian grandmother Maria Marletta, who applied to move to Britain to live with her daughter, a British citizen. She argued that she could not afford treatment for her health conditions — including high blood pressure, hearing problems, memory loss, and chest pain — in Argentina. But her appeal was rejected by Judge Anna-Rose Landes, who ruled that other family members could care for her and that her situation did not meet the threshold for protection under the ECHR’s right to family life.
In response to the growing number of similar claims, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is preparing to introduce a new crackdown on asylum laws later this month. The upcoming measures are expected to restrict how migrants use the ECHR to challenge deportation orders, particularly when they argue that removal from the UK would violate their right to family life or expose them to poor treatment in their home countries.
