Three Kurdish asylum seekers have lost their legal battle to remain in the UK after the Iraqi embassy began issuing biometric ID cards.
An Iraqi citizen who did not have a valid Civil Status ID card (CSID) could not be deported under rules reflecting the danger posed by numerous checkpoints in their homeland. Courts used the absence of a CSID, and the inability to obtain one while living in the UK, as part of their legal criteria in deportation cases.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani visited Britain in early 2025 and agreed to procedural measures that would speed up deportation.
The Iraqi embassy in London has now begun issuing the Iraqi Unified National Identity Card (INID), a biometric document that has replaced the CSID.
The three asylum seekers, whose names were withheld and are known only by two letters, appealed against the decision by the Home Office to deport them, saying they could not obtain ID cards.
The Home Office argued ID cards can be obtained in London and, even if failed asylum seekers return to Iraq undocumented, the three asylum seekers can obtain a temporary ID at the airports in Erbil or Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq's Kurdistan region.
All three asylum seekers are from what the court in London described as the "Disputed Territories" – areas where control is contested between the Kurdistan region and the government in Baghdad.
AK was born in 1986 and claims to have left Iraq in June 2018 and travelled to the UK, claiming asylum later that month. That was rejected by the Home Office.
A panel of three judges dismissed claims by AK that his father had been in Iraq wholly undocumented since 2014, preventing him obtaining an ID. They said it was “highly likely" that AK’s father in Iraq had obtained an INID and that AK’s application for one "should, for these reasons, be a straightforward one and measured in a matter of weeks”.
The second asylum seeker to appeal, AH, arrived in the UK in August 2017 and claimed asylum on the same day. The man, who has four children, had his claim turned down in 2021. He also said he was unable to obtain the necessary documentation from family in Iraq, a claim the judges rejected.
“In all of the circumstances, we find that AH has not established that neither he nor his family members are unable to obtain an INID from the Iraqi Embassy in London,” they said in their ruling.
The third asylum seeker, AJ, left Iraq in February 2019, travelling through countries including Turkey before arriving in the UK, where he claimed asylum in March that year.
The judges threw out his claim, saying the lack of an ID card would not lead to ill treatment in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights if he returned to Iraq.
“He would be able to obtain an INID from the Iraqi embassy in London before his return. With an INID, he would be able to freely live and travel in Iraq.”
The court also heard from Mairead Peronius, who visited the Iraqi embassy in London and found there were several booths dealing exclusively with INID applications and where fingerprints, eyes scans and photographs are taken.
These can be checked within 15 to 20 minutes and, once approval is granted, the INID is issued in Baghdad. That takes between one and two months for this to be done and the ID to be delivered to the embassy.
An Iraqi official told Ms Peronius that 3,000 applications were processed after the service was launched in October 2024, at a rate of about 40 to 60 applications a day.
