A bombshell new report reveals scores of migrants have lied about their age to get into Britain, as almost 50 per cent of under-18s who come alone are waved through upon arrival.
The report, by Stand for Our Sovereignty and shared exclusively with GB News, builds on a previous analysis of Home Office data, which revealed that the majority of those crossing the Channel are men of fighting age.
Bad incentives?
Children (those under the age of 18) are treated very differently when it comes to claiming asylum in the UK.
Firstly, they have a better chance of being granted leave to stay, and secondly, there is a well-held opinion that they will receive better treatment overall than adults.
The Stand for Our Sovereignty report has uncovered evidence that the Home Office tends to give asylum seekers the benefit of the doubt in ‘age dispute cases'.
The Home Office defines an age dispute as a case whereby an 'applicant who does not have credible documentary or other persuasive evidence to demonstrate their claimed age, whose claim to be a child is doubted by the Home Office and, as a result, there is a need for the Home Office to assess their age'.
Unlike in some EU countries, migrants in the UK are not required to undergo any medical exam, x-rays or other biometric tests.
Instead, age disputes are based on “a determination by two Home Office officers that the person’s physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests they are significantly over the age of 18”.
In the Home Office’s guidance to its own officers, it stresses this point and warns seriously that they can cause ‘great emotional harm’ to the migrant if they are wrong, as well as making the Home Office liable for damages. Given what's at stake, the report's authors suggest that no ambitious officer would take such a risk.
To be considered a child, a migrant must be under 18, i.e. 17 or less. "It is therefore odd that the Home Office guidance refers to 'over the age of 18' when they should say 'over the age of 17'," said the report's authors.
They continued: "Immediately, this suggests very strongly that they will not challenge those who look 18. The 'very significantly over' part suggests that few ‘child migrants’ will be challenged unless they look over, say, their early twenties."
The damning figures about migrant acceptance rates have been shared exclusively with GB News
|PA
How many illegal migrants have lied about their age?
The final section of the report looks at how many migrants have lied about their age.
It's impossible to know exactly how many illegal migrants aged 18 and over have been able to fool the system and pass for 17 years old or under.
The report extrapolates based on the numbers of those who have been caught.
For the year to June 2025, the approval rate for unaccompanied under-18s is 84 per cent (see chart below).
This is drastically higher than the approval rate for adults aged 18-24, which stands at around 56.5 per cent.
In the same time span, those claiming to be under 18 stands at 4,727, while those accepted to be under 18 stands at 2,854.
Out of all of those to be over 18 in reality is 1,873 (see second chart below). This is around 39.6 per cent of total age disputes resolved.
Those who pretend to be under 18 are likely to be in the 18-24 age bracket.
In Sir Keir Starmer’s first 12 months, there were an additional 14,664 illegal boat migrants aged 18-24.
If the Home Office had doubled the number of age-dispute cases it investigated, then this is likely to have meant 3,500 more migrants caught trying to increase their chances by 50 per cent.
Approval rate for those under 18 is almost 50 per cent higher
|FACTS4EU
Investigation into the Home Office has revealed almost 40 per cent of those who claim to be under 18 are actually adults
|FACTS4EU
Summary
In summary, almost 40 per cent of under-18s investigated have been found to be 18 or over and almost 50 per cent of under-18s have been waved through upon arrival - a figure that jumped to 84 per cent if they came alone.
GB News has approached the Home Office for a comment.