Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has claimed that as many as one fifth of Albanian male migrants are falsely claiming to be children in order to avoid being deported.
According to The Telegraph:
Unaccompanied children are more likely to be granted asylum and less likely to be detained or removed if their claim is rejected.
People-smugglers are suspected of exploiting legal loopholes to encourage young-looking migrants to destroy their documents and claim to be minors.
Around 10,000 Albanian men have arrived on small boats so far this year, accounting for a quarter of the record 40,000 migrants to have crossed the Channel.
Mr Jenrick said: “At times, up to 20 per cent of the adult males who arrive at Western Jet Foil [reception centre in Dover] claim to be under 18, when clearly the number is substantially less than that.
“We have already changed the law, to change the way in which those tests are administered, and if we need to make further legal changes, we will.”
The Home Office tightened the rules earlier this year, allowing officials to challenge migrants’ age if their appearance and demeanour strongly suggested they were 18 or older. The previous age threshold had been 25.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “The high number crossing the Channel illegally who claim to be children reflects the ease with which the asylum system can be gamed.
The traffickers know that officials have been told to give the benefit of any doubt where age is the issue to the applicant.”
Home Office data shows 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.
