"While at the Home Office, I became aware of churches around the country facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims," she wrote in a piece for the Telegraph on Saturday.

"They are well-known within the migrant communities and, upon arrival in the UK, migrants are directed to these churches as a one-stop shop to bolster their asylum case. Attend mass once a week for a few months, befriend the vicar, get your baptism date in the diary, and bingo, you'll be signed off by a member of the clergy that you're now a God-fearing Christian who will face certain persecution if removed to your Islamic country of origin."

She said the practice "has to stop," and called on her fellow Britons to "get wise to the problem."

Among those who have been granted asylum after converting to Christianity is Abdul Ezedi, the man suspected of carrying out a chemical attack in London on January 31 that sent a mother and her toddler to the hospital.

Ezedi, originally from Afghanistan, was convicted of a sexual assault in 2018 at Newcastle Crown Court and discharged from probation in 2020. He applied for asylum in the UK three times, and managed to get accepted despite his prior convictions.

Police have not been able to track him down following the acid attack.