Islamabad: Pakistan is facing renewed scrutiny as questions are being raised about the low number of deportations, as the UK bans visas to some nations that have high asylum cases, local media reported.
The development comes days after the UK placed an “emergency brake” on visas of people from four nations after an increase in asylum claims from legal routes. The UK Home Office will end sponsored study visas for people of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan and end skilled worker visas for Afghans, Pakistan’s leading daily Dawn reported.
Asked why Pakistan had not been targeted by proposed visa restrictions, as the nation accounted for the largest share of people who entered Britain on legal visas and later applied for asylum, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “This is not the end of the action we will take.”
“This is the beginning and not the end of the action we will take in this area,” she added.
However, Mahmood refused to mention whether discussions were ongoing with other nations about possible visa restrictions.
Sources on the Pakistan and UK government sides said that even though Islamabad was cooperating with the British authorities on the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers, the number of Pakistanis on student visas who later requested asylum was very high, Dawn reported.
According to official figures, Pakistani nationals account for the largest group seeking asylum in the UK, accounting for roughly one in 10 applications. In 2024, 10,638 Pakistanis applied for asylum, nearly double the total recorded in 2023 and higher than the number of applicants from Eritrea, Iran, and Afghanistan. Initially, many applicants travel to the UK through legal routes, including student, work, or visitor visas. However, they later made asylum claims.
Over 70 per cent of Pakistani asylum claims are rejected, according to government data. Although the refusal rate is high, only a small number of unsuccessful applicants are sent back. According to UK Home Office statistics, 10,853 Pakistani asylum claims were refused in 2025; however, only 445 people were deported to Pakistan during the same period, which implies around 4.1 per cent of rejected applicants.
