Exposed: The failed American asylum seeker Britain won't deport

0:28The Telegraph at taxpayers' expense. What makes matters even worse is the string of home office blunders that means he is still in the country today, despite agreeing to be deported. And we can reveal how a council worker offered him benefits even though she knew his asylum claim had been rejected and that he was essentially an illegal immigrant. It's a mad story. Stay tuned. We're going to give you all the details. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominy.

1:12Tim, it's been a busy week. This is the most remarkable story laying bare, frankly, the chaos and confusion that reigns over our border control system, our home office in this country. A case study in madness. It is a case study in insanity. And I've written it up for the Telegraph website. You can see that online. It's also going to be in the paper. Basically, this is a fiasco that has seen a US citizen claim asylum in the UK, have his claim rejected, but remain here being funded by the taxpayer because border control don't seem to be able to get their act together to remove him. That's it in summary.

2:01But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Yes. We're talking here about a 27-year-old called Alabati Shunregan, who is originally from Las Vegas, where his family have a house worth$500 ,000 and live in a gated community. He's well-educated. He's got a bachelor's degree in psychology from a university in Boston, Massachusetts. and the reason we can tell this story in such technicolour, with such detail and with actual footage is because Sean Regan has filmed every step of the way that he has taken from the US to the UK where he is currently residing homeless in Islington, North London. But we'll get to that a little later in the podcast.

2:42Let's start at the beginning and the beginning of this story starts with footage that he has posted himself attending a Kamala Harris rally It's just before the US election in America. It's October 2024. Barack Obama is there. He is clearly pro-Democrat. And he films himself at this joyous event.

3:07Four days before this rally, the rally was on October 20, 2024, four days before, he had purchased a plane ticket to the United Kingdom. He got on a Norse flight from Vegas to the UK on October the 22nd, wearing a cream suit, red tie, and still with his Kamala Harris badge on.

3:46So I'm making a video because I didn't wake up too long ago and I'm flying north right now. He lands at Gatwick a day later on October the 23rd and he immediately makes an asylum application on arrival after he's stopped and his bags are searched. Now, just in terms of his citizenship, he has arrived here on a US passport. But curiously, he has provided documentation to suggest that he was actually born in the UK in 1997. He was born in Nislington, according to the birth certificate that he's posted online and indeed his own passport. He was born to a Nigerian father and a Grenadian mother. He also claims, as well as being persecuted by the US, that he's been persecuted by Grenada And equally that he's been persecuted by his own parents Because he is both Jewish and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints Mormon Indeed, so let's get into that in a minute But in the immediate aftermath of him arriving at Gatwick He claims asylum in the UK Now, we believe that to be the first case ever of a US citizen claiming asylum in Britain.

5:09So we have this situation where somebody is claiming to be persecuted by a country with which we have a so-called special relationship. He claims to have a well-founded fear of persecution in the United States because of his race and ethnicity, bearing in mind he attended that big Democrat rally. But that's what he says. Despite describing himself as a self-employed investor, he claimed the police and employers had prevented him from getting a job because he is black. And he also says that he fell out with his parents, although he fondly references mum and dad in some of his earlier social media videos in the UK.

5:47Good morning, mum and dad. I just woke up and it's 9.56 GMT and I think breakfast is ending in four minutes. So what happens when you arrive in the UK, you claim asylum, your case has to be considered, right? I mean, this is what some people might find unbelievable, because I would imagine that if you come on a U.S. passport to the U.K., you have family that live in the U.S., you're a well-spoken university graduate, and you are recognizant as a border force officer that the U.S. is a, quote, safe country. It would be highly unlikely. One would imagine just the layman on the street would think at that point you say, right, what you're going to do, sir, is you're going to get on the first plane back to Las Vegas.

6:37But because the asylum claim is lodged, it needs to be considered. Right. So what happens next? Well, Sean Regan needs somewhere to live. So he contacts an organisation called Migrant Help UK. And that is when he embarks on quite an extraordinary journey, which begins at the Hampton by Hilton Hotel in Croydon. OK, they put him up for the night. And the next day he goes to Heathrow Airport to meet up with a member from that charity in a bid to obtain housing. Get some tea. So I'm just waiting for her to come back to tell her my situation. and see if, you know, I can continue with Migrant Help UK to get some housing.

7:23He is then booked into the Premier in Heathrow for a further night by Migrant Help UK and he's quite happy with that because he films a room tour showing how nice his room is. I got here probably about an hour ago. There's a little area here for, I guess, if someone is trying to dress their hair. But it's a really nice room. Following that, he moved to a holiday inn in Wembley after he'd been granted emergency housing and there recorded another room tour and filmed himself unpacking designer clothes and several pairs of shoes. He does post quite a few videos boasting about the nice food he's getting and how he's going for a walk to Tesco's to go to the mall and seems quite happy and content with his situation.

8:09I may head over to the Tesco Express right there, get a snack or I may go to like a like the mall I'm gonna go over there I'm gonna go to the mall a few weeks later now embedded into the community at the migrant hotel in Wembley familiar with his surroundings he takes receipt of an ARC card that's a credit card sized plastic card issued by the home office to individuals who claim asylum it certifies that you are an asylum claimant and you can remain in the UK while your claim is pending. The ARC card curiously shows his place of birth as the US, even though he later claims he was born in the UK.

8:50But no matter. It also, by the way, stipulates on the front of the card that because he's seeking asylum, he cannot work in the UK. Right. I would like to get one of those. Unfortunately, he fell out with a roommate who appears to be Iranian and posted footage of their altercation. Don't put your hands on me. Do not put your hands on me. You're going to get hit. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Who the f*** are you? The police were called and Sean Regan was evicted. So I'm being evicted. So I'm going to the airport. These people are f***ing weird. He was then transported privately by the Home Office to his new accommodation to another Holiday Inn, and it sounds like we're advertising here, next to Heathrow Airport, where he remained until July 2025.

9:39So just to do a recap on the timing of that, he arrives in the October, he's still being put up in migrant hotels until the beginning of July. Now, at that point and in that intervening period, various social media posts are made, including him showing he has both a US and a British phone, although he claims later that the US phone has been taken off him by law enforcement. He also shows how he's living in the hotel, how he has unlimited access to food from the canteen. My food's right here. I got the card. He shows how he's bringing brown bags of food back to his hotel room to stockpile. Now I'm going to chill out and eat.

10:22He seems to be getting on with his fellow migrants in the hotel. There is footage of him partying with others, watching TV. He even films cleaners cleaning his hotel room. He gets somebody in to repair the shower. On another occasion, somebody comes in to repair the air conditioning. And of course, all the time he is using the hotel's free Wi-Fi. The other thing that he has got hold of at this point is an ASPEN card. ASPEN stands for Asylum Support Enablement. And this is a card that is prepaid by the state, but with taxpayers' money, to enable asylum seekers to spend modest amounts on food every week.

11:04And at one point he films himself using it to buy some tomato ketchup. It worked? Yes. OK, cool. So it worked. Applying for asylum in Britain is starting to sound like an alternative to Airbnb at this point. If you are, put it this way, just with regard to the reaction that might be engendered by seeing him stockpiling this food, we do need to bear in mind that there are members of the British Armed Forces that are currently homeless on the streets who I don't think have ever been given access to a fully stocked canteen 24 hours a day. I'm just going to leave that there. But this is, to be fair to Sean Regan, he is merely taking what is offered to him as an asylum seeker.

11:48Yes. Coming up next, you'll be pleased and unsurprised to hear that his asylum application was rejected. But that wasn't the end of his journey in Britain. That was just the beginning.

12:08So let's pick up on the story on a crucial day, and that is June 5th, 2025, so summer last year. He receives at his migrant hotel a 22-page letter from the Home Office detailing, and it's in great detail, that his asylum claim has been rejected and the reasons for it. And Tim, some of the reasons cited won't necessarily surprise you. The Home Office makes it quite clear that claims to have been persecuted in America on the grounds of race and religion and even sexuality are prohibited under the Constitution. They make the point that even if he was claiming exceptional circumstances in this country, that if he needed special medical care, that again, that's available to him in the US.

12:59The letter points out things like your parents live in comfortable accommodation in America. There's no reason why you can't go back there. Basically, it is a 22 page demolition of his entire claim and crucially points out he does not have the right to appeal it. And to be fair, let's just discuss Mr. Sean Regan's mental health, because it is mentioned in the rejection letter. There's also a reference in that letter to the fact that he is taken to hospital after an earlier confrontation with somebody in one of the migrant hotels in the January of 2025. But the Home Office does consider this notion of him claiming under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

13:43So you could claim under Article 8, right to family life. He's denied that. He's got no real ties to the UK. He's not married. He's childless, etc. They also consider whether he needs to be given discretionary leave to remain because he's got some kind of medical problem that can only be dealt with here. And both of those claims are roundly rejected. Right. So you'd imagine at this point that someone now marches him to a waiting plane and flies him straight back. But that's not what happens. He's first of all directed towards a voluntary repatriation scheme. Yes. Correct. And then he's told that he must vacate the migrant hotel within a 21-day grace period.

14:23That grace period ends on July the 1st. He does leave the migrant hotel, but it's at that point that Sean Regan, rather than heading towards Heathrow and trying to do a deal with the Home Office to effectively be paid to leave under the voluntary return scheme, he heads to Islington, North London, later admitting it was because that was where he was born. And he ends up being enveloped into the homelessness scene there. So he starts rough sleeping and films himself visiting the Food Cycle Community Kitchen for free food and the Union Chapel charity drop-in centre to collect a free Sainsbury's gift card.

15:02Don't forget to take your bag, I won't. Because he has no food, Shinregan claims he has contacted the Met Police threatening to shoplift if he does not receive any money. I tell them that I'm going to go shoplift. You know, like, if I don't have any cash to buy food, I will shoplift, but I'm not a shoplifter, really. He claims that the police told him to shoplift if he needs to. And the police then tells me, well, shoplift if you want to. Now we get to arguably the most sort of eye-popping part of this story, Tim. He ends up going to Islington Council for help and support, and he films himself in a meeting with a council worker.

15:42The Telegraph does know her name but has chosen not to name her to protect her privacy. She acknowledges on tape that his asylum claim has been rejected. But right now I'm in London and then I have stayed in... You launched your asylum on the 23rd of October, 2023. But isn't it 2025? No, 2025 your claim was refused. But instead of referring him to Border Force as an illegal immigrant, she starts the process of helping him to obtain housing and benefits, obviously paid for by the British taxpayer. The same council worker who has set up a bank account in Sean Regan's name is recorded saying that in a meeting in August that he is entitled to be treated, quote, like a British national.

16:33Would you be willing to go into an accommodation that gives you respite? So for like a few weeks, you go into this accommodation and it's optional. No one's going to force you. You want to stay there. You stay there. If you don't want to stay there, it's fine. So is it a jail or am I allowed? No, no, no. It's not a jail. But it's garnered towards pampering me considering that I've been rough sleeping. and yeah okay and all of that and you know people develop anxiety depression whilst they're on the streets and that isn't it yeah you know what a respite a week two weeks three weeks however long you want to stay there for you stay there and then if you feel that it's getting too much or you want to go into somewhere else somewhere and we will be discussing other housing options whilst you're there as well.

17:30So now that you've got your benefit, you are like a British national, more or less. So you've got the same right to the services as anybody from Britain, basically. So as we've now got that sorted, our kind of options have widened, so we can look at more options. And that's why we're able to kind of offer you these kind of places. He is sent to live in nearby social housing. Sean Regan posts videos of himself travelling around London, eating McDonald's, visiting Islington Library to use the computers and going out drinking. But in November, after he's been in the social housing for some months, things go wrong again because he films himself having another quite disturbing altercation with the staff there.

18:24Look at you. What do you mean leave? Stop doing that funny to me What do you mean you're gonna report who what are you gonna I don't know who you are you you're not helping me Take your stupid ass downstairs call the police Dumbass away from me leave me alone

18:49Is something wrong with you do you listen

18:56Is that funny to you? It's your job. Open the door. Open the f***ing door. Open the f***ing door. F***ing s***. I don't know what this s***. I don't know what these s*** want. The police are called and he's evicted, so he's back onto the streets. So now he's running out of road, he's got to consider leaving the UK. And on December 10th, Sean Regan meets with the Border Force at Heathrow Airport, where he is informed that he is eligible for that voluntary returns scheme and is offered£1 ,500 plus a flight to Las Vegas. Note, the£1 ,500 doesn't cover the flight to Las Vegas. It's a sweetener on top of the flight to Las Vegas.

19:40So anyway, you could really fill your boots with duty-free. So Sean Regan films himself signing the agreement and agreeing to the Home Office retaining his passport so that he cannot leave without their approval. It doesn't really matter to me where you send me in the United States. I would need, obviously because this is a voluntary departure case, I would like to ask your opinion of where you'd like to go because I'm booking a ticket according to what you would need. OK. So I was told that I can receive£1 ,500. But one week later, he claims that he returned to Heathrow Airport at the agreed date and time, only to find that no air ticket had been purchased for him.

20:22He's stuck at Heathrow. He doesn't have his passport because the Home Office has it. What choice has he got but to go to the US Embassy in London? He goes there, explains his quite bizarre situation and they take pity on him and put him up for the night. Okay. Probably because it then is getting into the Christmas silly season. People have broken up to celebrate Christmas, right? He has no choice but to leave the embassy and go back to Islington, where at least he's had a history of rough sleeping and knows where to go. Christmas Day, where is he? He's at an Islington homeless lunch at the Islington Assembly Hall alongside the mayor of Islington.

21:07Can you take a photo with the mayor of Islington? I really wouldn't be surprised in this story if at some point there's a photo of him with Keir Starmer. Well, possibly shaking hands. And look, this is unbelievable because this is at the point where he has signed a voluntary returns agreement. Yes. And the Home Office must know that they have his passport. Yes. They must be thinking to themselves... Where is he? Why don't we... Why have we still got this guy's passport who we have agreed to voluntarily deport back to the US? And he can't travel without the passport. So effectively, the British government is now keeping him in the country.

21:42In the country. And to be fair to him, where else does he go on Christmas Day but back into the arms of the people who have very charitably helped him out. So he goes to St Mungo's, which is a homelessness charity, and they put him up again. That's in Islington, North London. They put him up for a few days, but again, shock horror, he has an altercation with staff there. He gets thrown out of St Mungo's, goes back to Islington Council. Again, Issen can counsel, do not call the board of force, seemingly. Instead, they decide to send him, again at taxpayers' expense, to the local Premier Inn. Where he films himself ordering a chicken burger and banoffee pie cheesecake from the hotel menu.

22:29I'll just have the chicken stack burger then. And then I'm going to try this today. The ice cream sundae with Cadbury jari milk. Well, actually, no, I'll take this one. The cheesecake. Yeah, the cheesecake. And so I'm going to get vanilla ice cream or that, right? Spoiler alert, he's not paying for this. Right. OK, we're almost up to date now. This takes us to the events of recent days. He spends the weekend at the premiere, Ng. He then heads to the Barbican Theatre because I think he finds out that you can sleep rough there and get a little bit of support. And then midweek, he ends up in, or outside, I should say, a McDonald's in Islington.

23:15So he's going between the places where he knows he can get some help as a homeless person. Our colleague, Patrick Sawyer, who is a Telegraph top senior news reporter, went to Islington to catch up with him. And this is their exchange. The taxpayers are paying for me to be here. I didn't know that, and I want to say thank you if that's the situation, because I have been receiving funds from, I guess I've been receiving funds via the Islington Council, you know, and I'm grateful for that, but I do consider myself as kind of like a law-abiding resident who does actively work here. So in that sense, even though I'm grateful, I would say that I would actually be a great contribution to the United Kingdom work environment.

24:20I've been given funds from the Islington Council and from the boss at St. Stephen's Canterbury around£400.19 a month to help me with my living expenses. I've also used that money to pay for service on my cellular device. I was born in the United Kingdom. So I think that it's crazy for me not to receive some kind of benefit. So I'm not too surprised. And I don't think that 400 pounds is a lot of cash. I mean, I can live off that 400 pounds because...

25:21I'm cheap. Yeah, but... Okay.

25:29And I work, so I mean, I deserve that and more in my opinion. But I'm not angry and I'm not really like... I have chosen to come back to the United Kingdom because I wanted humanitarian protection away from violent homosexuality. and I've told people that and people have not believed me. I've told people that I've been sexually assaulted by several police officials. I feel some kind of, you know, like achiness from homosexual behavior and violent homosexuality and sexual torture and all that kind of stuff. And when I decided to claim asylum, I had a feeling that I would just get through the airport border very easily because I has in my United Kingdom birth certificate.

26:52And so I didn't really think that I would claim asylum in the way, I didn't think I would have to apply. I thought I'd just have to tell them, I'm coming back here seeking protection. I have been born here, therefore, you know, like I can just be here. Tim, listening to him there, I mean, it's hard not to feel some sympathy. for reasons we don't really fully understand. And I know what he's claimed, but it's hard to pin down the truth here. He has decided as a US citizen to come to the UK, try and claim asylum here. And I don't know what end up living here on a permanent basis. He's in his interview with Patrick there citing the fact that he was born in Britain, although that does not feature.

27:39I've got to make this clear. It does not feature in his asylum claim at all. And it doesn't feature in the rejection letter either. Apparently, this case caused great alarm at the centre of government, this idea that, my goodness me, we're dealing with the first ever case of an American claiming asylum in the UK. But isn't it just an example of two different things? First of all, perhaps the perception that Britain is a soft touch, that you can turn up here, fill out some forms and be given room and board in migrant hotels until your case is heard. And by the way, even when your case is heard and rejected, no one's really going to follow up on it adequately.

28:22The border force is in complete chaos. So you can remain here. I don't think this guy wants to end up rough sleeping, but at every turn, the state has swept in to help him. Yeah. I don't think he's venal in his motivations because he's not lived very well in Britain. He's lived comfortably in hotels, free food. Fine. But it's not like he's really cashed in. And sometimes he's been sleeping rough. That's not exactly the migrant's dream, is it? I mean, the first thing that doesn't make sense is that, okay, maybe he can't just be turned away when he first arrives. Because let's be generous and say you have to assess every claim, even if it's someone from the United States.

29:04You could argue that America is quite a dangerous country for some people. But once you have been investigated and it's been rejected, what I don't understand is why you're not physically marched to an airport and put on a plane. Rather, you're given notice. because if you give people notice, you're just going to disappear. Yes. And also, what are we to make of the clearly well-meaning Islington council worker who turns around and says, well, as soon as you've got your benefits, you're basically a British citizen. Well, no, you aren't. He's an illegal immigrant. That's tricky because the Home Office could well argue, well, we can try and enforce whatever we like, But then we've got people like this do-gooders trying to help him out.

29:51Again, I don't criticise this woman for her lack of charity. She's clearly trying to help. But she's actually made a bad situation worse. Because all this guy really needs to do is get on a plane and go back to where he used to live 20 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. Yes. His mother's there. I know there have been familial problems. But also, as the asylum rejection says, they would have flown him to anywhere in America. is a university-educated young man who presumably could find work, even if menial, in the land of opportunities. I can't blame any one of the charitable organisations because I feel for a society to work, every institution must do its job.

30:35They're not there to make a judgement about whether he deserves asylum or not. They are there to make sure he has a bed for the night and a full belly. The council worker is in a slightly more grey area. But when it comes to the state, it's the state's job to write the law and enforce the law. So it's down to the state to have removed this person. I wouldn't judge anyone who along the way helped him to make sure he was safe and secure. If everyone did their job, then he wouldn't be here, right? But people like him are always going to try this kind of thing. And the state should be sagacious enough to know that that's the case and act on it and act swiftly.

31:13So intrigued to hear what you think about this extraordinary story. Do get in touch. It's thedailytea at telegraph.co.uk if you want to email. And as ever, you can contact us via our social media, X, TikTok and Instagram. A Home Office spokesman said, The airline deemed Mr Sean Regan unfit to fly. We are working to remove him as soon as possible. Under this government, returns of people with no right to remain in the UK have surged, with almost 50 ,000 people removed, a 23 % increase on the previous period. An Islington Council spokesperson said, Islington Council does not offer financial support or social housing to anyone without an eligible immigration status within government rules and regulations.

32:04The council continues to offer advice and works with partner organisations to ensure that anyone experiencing homelessness can get the support they need.