Adult migrants posing as children targeted
Immigration officials to be given greater powers to determine whether refugees are aged over 18
New rules to weed out adult migrants falsely claiming to be children to boost their asylum chances will be introduced today by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, after fake applications trebled. Guidance will allow officials to crack down on anyone who appears to be over 18 seeking to pose as a child in order to fast-track their applications instead of the current assessment that their physical appearance and demeanour “very strongly suggests they are 25 or over”.
AGE rules to weed out adult migrants falsely claiming to be children to boost their asylum chances are to be introduced by ministers after a trebling in fake applications.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, will today issue guidance that will allow immigration officials to crack down on anyone who appears to be over 18 seeking to pose as a child in order to fasttrack their applications.
At present, officials unsure of the age of a young migrant have to treat them as children unless their physical appearance and demeanour “very strongly suggests that they are 25 or over”.
The lowering of the age threshold follows Home Office data which showed the number of adult migrants falsely claiming to be children hit 1,118 in the year to September 2021, the highest figures since records began in 2006 and more than treble the 320 in the previous year. Unaccompanied children are more likely to be granted asylum.
Channel people-smugglers are suspected of exploiting legal loopholes to encourage young-looking migrants to destroy their documents and claim to be minors, a move that came amid a record surge in crossings to a high of more than 28,300 last year.
A total of 271 migrants including young children crossed the Channel in small boats yesterday in what is believed to have been a record number for a single day in January.
The age rules come after the Home Office overturned a 2019 Appeal Court rulling that its 18-year-old threshold was unlawful as it failed to ensure that children are not mistakenly treated as adults. However, after the Supreme Court backed the Home Office in August last year, a spokesman said: “The guidance will change that to treating them as adults if two Home Office officials think the person looks significantly over 18. It will help officials identify adults attempting to pose as children.”
Kevin Foster, an immigration minister, said: “Single adults who falsely claim to be children in order to seek asylum go on to access children’s services putting the welfare of children and young adults in school and care at risk.”
If there is a dispute, migrants currently have to have formal secondary checks, known as the Merton test, which involve assessments by two trained social workers.
The Home Office data show there were 1,696 cases where the age of the child migrant was called into question in the year to September 2021. Of those, 1,118, or 66 per cent, were found to be 18 or older.
Ministers are planning to replace the Merton test with new scientific methods including X-ray checks for asylum seekers suspected of lying about their age. Earlier this month, Ms Patel unveiled a scientific committee to scrutinise ways of analysing migrants who claim to be under 18, saying the deception carried out by some asylum seekers was an “appalling abuse of our system, which we will end”.
Experts on the scientific advisory committee will look at the methods other countries use to determine peo- ple’s true ages, including X-ray examinations and other types of radiology, plus CT and MRI scans.
The first group was brought ashore around 6am by the RNLB City of London II Dover Lifeboat. The final group of 45 migrants was brought ashore by an RNLI lifeboat at Dungeness at 5pm.
The boat brought the group – all men who claimed to be Syrian – on to the remote pebble beach in darkness around 5pm after they had been picked up in their dinghy at sea. They were met by waiting immigration officials.