The number of adult migrants claiming to be child asylum seekers has climbed to a record high in Britain this year, with more than 1,300 fraudulent cases discovered by authorities.
At least 1,317 migrants have falsely claimed to be minors from the start of the year to the end of June, the highest figure on record and more than all cases reported in 2017, 2018, and 2019 combined, according to a report from The Sun.
The top-selling British paper said that there were 283 migrant adults from Afghanistan, 282 from Sudan, 236 from Vietnam, and 140 from Eritrea who claimed be child asylum seekers this year.
The increasing practice is often used by illegal migrants to better their chances of being granted the right to stay in the UK, as children are often given special dispensation during asylum claim decisions.
Immigration Minister Dame Angela Eagle admitted last week that currently one in five illegal boat migrants arriving on the shores of Britain after crossing the English Channel from France claim to be children, many of whom falsely in order to “get a better deal”.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Dame Angela said per the Daily Mail: “There is an issue about identifying correctly those who are children… About 20 per cent of the people that come across in boats at the moment are claiming they’re children. Not all of them are.”
“And so clearly the signal has gone out that if you claim you’re a child, then you’re going to get a better deal… There are safeguarding issues one way or the other, if you let adults in the children’s system, or children in the adults system, that we’ve got to try to sort out.”
The failures of immigration authorities to suss out migrant scammers pretending to be children has come with deadly consequences.
For instance, Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, a convicted Afghan murderer, was given the ability to remain in the UK despite entering illegally after he claimed to be a 14-year-old orphan when in reality, he was 18.
Abdulrahimzai was placed into foster care and was sent into a school where he began to sexually abuse young girls. The Afghan illegal later stabbed and killed aspiring marine Thomas Roberts in 2022.
Parsons Green terrorist, Iraqi migrant Ahmed Hassan, who set off a bomb on the London underground in 2017 which injured 23 people, was also found by a judge to have falsely posed as a child when entering the UK to “glean the special privileges accorded to children entering the UK.”
In another notable example, a migrant believed to have been 38-years-old at the time of his arrival in the UK attempted to claim that he was a child asylum seeker. Pro-open borders activists initially attempted to claim that he was serving as a language interpreter for other migrants, but this later also proved to be false.
The previous Conservative government had planned to tighten up checks on migrants from preventing them from being able to deceive authorities, including allowing the use of X-rays and dental checks to determine their real age.
It is unclear, however, if the new left-wing Labour government will follow through with the plans. Despite promises from Prime Minister Starmer to crack down on illegal immigration, over 10,000 aliens have reached the UK in small boats since his government came into power in July, taking the total for the year to over 25,000.
