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Labour ministers in the UK have been urged to introduce strict tests to weed out the growing numbers of migrants who are posing as children.
DailyMail.com reports that under a law passed by the Tories earlier this year, the Home Office as the power to carry out scientific checks on those who cross the Channel by dinghy and claim to be under 18. Officials can use X-rays to inspect new arrivals’ teeth or hand, leg and collar bones to determine their real age and ensure adults are not wrongly treated as children and placed in schools.
However, the tests have not yet been used, and it is unclear if the Labour Government will ever allow them. Immigration officers currently give migrants the benefit of the doubt unless the individual “looks and acts much older than 18.”
Angela Eagle, the immigration minister, has admitted that one in five people arriving in Britain by small boat now claims to be a child and that the “signal has gone out” that doing so means they can “get a better deal”.
The latest official figures show that more of those who had their age assessed turned out to be adults than children. Of the 1,461 age assessments carried out in the three months to June, in 575 cases, the migrants were resolved to be over 18, and only in 704 cases were they deemed to be Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, entitling them to local authority support and a school place.
Chris Philip, Shadow Home Minister, said, “The Home Office needs to urgently implement scientific age assessment.
“I initiated this process four years ago, and the regulations came into force in January – Labour must implement these immediately as we are the only European country not to use scientific age assessment.
“Our system is routinely abused by illegal immigrants falsely claiming to be under the age of 18. This is an abuse of our system, putting pressure on services and leading to safeguarding risks when young males are placed in school settings.”
Philip had served as immigration minister in Boris Johnson’s administration.
A senior border source said in agreement, “When you get a 23-year-old man being taught alongside 13-ear-olds, it obviously leads to a safeguarding nightmare.
“But officials who are governed by the requirements of the Children’s Act always have to err on the side of caution. And many migrants are all too aware of that.”
An asylum seeker who falsely claimed to be 14 recently murdered an aspiring Royal Marine. Lawangeen Abdulrahimzal arrived in the UK on a ferry in 2019. No assessment was carried out of his age. Although a dentist was said to have raised concerns about his age, no assessment was carried out.
He was then allowed to enter secondary school, where he was said to have chased another pupil with a knife. He then stabbed to death Tom Roberts, 21, who was acting as a peacemaker in a row between his friend and the Afghan migrant outside a takeaway.
It was found that Abdulrahimzal was actually 19 and had been previously convicted of a double homicide in Serbia.
In a recent Parliamentary written question, Dame Angela said, “We are taking a holistic approach to prevent adults claiming to be children or children being wrongly treated as adults – as both present serious safeguarding risks to children.”
