Asylum seekers in Britain are receiving money on debit cards after they are granted asylum, even though the support should stop. Migrants receive the taxpayer funded debit card, known as an Aspen card, upon arriving in the UK. Each week, £49.18 is loaded onto the card per person, which is supposedly used for essentials such as clothes and food.
However, once an asylum seeker’s claim has been fully determined, the allowance should stop, yet this reportedly is not the case. Aspen cards aren’t being immediately cancelled when they should be, with one Facebook group for asylum seekers revealing that payments continued for an extra year. One person wrote: “Hi everyone, I was granted refugee status in January 2025…
“I’m still getting money on my Aspen card. Just wondering do I need to inform the Home Office about this, or will the payments stop automatically?”
Another refugee wrote in the group, according to The Sun: “I know someone else this happened to. But he had payments for a whole year.
“He did not touch the money as the Home Office could ask you to refund if you are not entitled to this.”
The Home Office is now investigating individual cases where Aspen cards have not been cancelled.
The department said in a statement: “The Home Office rules state that – when an individual ceases to qualify for support – their subsistence payments will automatically end, and their card will be cancelled, after a short transitional period.
!As part of our investigation into the functioning of Aspen cards, we will look into any instances where cards have not been cancelled as intended, and take whatever action is necessary to correct any faults.”
The Home Office also launched an investigation after it was revealed that some asylum seekers were using their taxpayer-funded debit cards for gambling.
More than 6,500 transactions using the government-issued cards were recorded, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The money was being spent to place bets in bookmakers, amusement arcades and casinos, Home Office data shows.
The government tracks where the cards were used but does not have the power to block transactions. The information showed that an average of 125 asylum seekers spent their money at “gambling-related merchants” each week during a 12-month period.
The numbers peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November last year – with migrants thought to have withdrawn cash from outside gambling venues to circumvent measures preventing the cards being used to directly place a bet.
