Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether any asylum seekers who are residing in Northern Ireland have criminal records in their countries of origin.

This data can only be obtained at disproportionate costs as it would require a manual search through individual records to establish their address and whether they have a criminal record in their country of origin.

All individuals who claim asylum are subject to mandatory security checks against their claimed identity including criminality checks on UK databases for, amongst other things, convictions, pending prosecutions, wanted or missing reports. This is critical to the delivery of a safe and secure immigration system.