‘Pray to stay’: Church of England facing questions over asylum seeker conversions

The Church of England

The Church of England has defended itself against accusations of
having helped asylum seekers “game the system” by converting to
Christianity.

Questions were raised after it emerged that the Liverpool
hospital bomb suspect, Emad Al
Swealmeen^[1], had converted to
Christianity from Islam. The suspected suicide bomber is reported
to have been baptised in 2015 and confirmed two years later at a
ceremony in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, close to where he died
when a home-made device
detonated in a taxi^[2]
on Remembrance Sunday.

According to reports, Swealmeen – believed to be a
Jordanian national with Syrian and Iraqi heritage – had been
refused asylum in 2014, before losing further appeals.

‘Gaming the system’

A Home Office source told The Times^[3] that Swealmeen was among
a number of asylum seekers who try to “game the system” by
converting to Christianity.

The newspaper said that “applicants who show they are committed
Christians can argue that their new faith would put them at risk in
their home country”.

The Telegraph^[4] reported that
“thousands” of asylum seekers had been “welcomed into the Anglican
faith in recent years, with clergy even given written guidance on
how to navigate the Home Office system”.

In an article published in the paper^[5] yesterday, former
Scottish Labour MP Tom Harris wrote that a “crucial piece of
advice” offered by people traffickers to many asylum seekers was to
“get involved in a local church” immediately after lodging an
initial asylum claim. “A full-on conversion to Christianity was
even better, though not always necessary,” Harris added.

Several newspapers pointed to a tribunal
decision^[6] on an anonymous asylum
case in 2017 that suggested an “improbably large” number of
Iranians attending the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral cast doubt on
whether they were all “genuine converts”. In other cases, asylum
was granted after conversions were deemed authentic.

According to The Sun^[7], Tim Loughton, a senior
Tory MP on the Home Affairs Select Committe, has vowed to launch a
Commons investigation into the alleged “loophole” used by “certain”
asylum seekers. Some were “playing the religious card to avoid
deportation”, he told the paper.

‘Seeing into minds and hearts’

The allegations against the Church of England have generated a
“certain amount of anger” among religious leaders, said the BBC’s
Harry Farley on Radio 4’s Today^[8]
programme.

A CoE spokesperson said: “We are not aware of any evidence of a
widespread correlation between conversion to Christianity and abuse
of the asylum system.”

Separately, an insider told religious affairs
reporter Farley that responsibility for assessing asylum
claims laid with the Home Office, not the Church.

While it is “certainly true” that large-scale services for
asylum seekers have been held in the past, including at the
Liverpool Anglican Church, said Farley, “it is very difficult to
see into people’s minds and hearts”.

Liverpool Bishop Cyril Ashton, who conducted Swealmeen’s
confirmation, said the Church takes the ritual seriously. The
suspect “would have been thoroughly ­prepared with an understanding
of the Christian faith”, Ashton said.

“It seems that, sadly, despite this grounding, the bomber chose
a ­different path for his life,” the bishop added.

The Daily Mail^[9] said that another
clergyman at the cathedral raised concerns in 2016 that asylum
seekers were posing as Christians, in a scheme dubbed “pray to
stay”.

“There are many people abusing the system,” Rev Mohammad
Eghtedarian reportedly said. “I’m not ashamed of saying that. But
is it the person’s fault or the system’s fault? And who are they
deceiving? The Home Office, me as a pastor, or God?”

Another church worker who let Swealmeen live with him and his
wife told the BBC^[10] that he still
believed the bomb suspect was a “genuine Christian”. Malcolm
Hitchcott, who welcomed Swealmeen into his home for eight months in
2017, said: “What went wrong, I do not know.”

‘Dysfunctional system’

Home Secretary Priti Patel last night pledged to overhaul the
asylum process. The case in Liverpool was “a complete reflection of
how dysfunctional, how broken, the system has been”, she told
reporters.

The system was “a complete merry-go-round” that had been
“exploited by a whole professional legal services industry”, she
added.

The home secretary spoke out as a newly published analysis by
the Refugee Council contradicted her past claims that 70% of people
who risk Channel crossings in small boats are single men who are
economic migrants to the UK.

Using “Home Office data and requests under freedom of
information laws”, the council concluded that “nearly two-thirds of
people who migrate to the UK in small boats are deemed to be
genuine refugees and allowed to remain”, The
Guardian^[11] reported.