Immigration judges who allow adult asylum seekers to be treated as children must be “removed and disbarred immediately”, critics declared last night.
A tribunal ruled a Sudanese asylum seeker with a “receding hairline” – who arrived on a small boat – should be treated as a child during his application.
The Home Office had assessed he was aged between 23 and 25.
One of the judges who oversaw the case also allowed a Palestinian family of six the right to come to Britain after they applied through the Ukrainian refugee scheme.
It has prompted renewed calls for “scientific age assessment” techniques to be introduced to prevent migrants from hoodwinking officials.
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson told the Daily Express: “Judges who allow fully grown adults to enter asylum programs as minors—at the taxpayer’s expense—must be removed and disbarred immediately.
“The days of Government corruption without consequences are over. Only Reform UK will hold these individuals accountable.
“Immigration tribunal lawyers defying Home Office rulings? Completely unacceptable. Adults must be treated as adults and should not being costing local councils thousands in legal fees.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp: “This is a ludicrous decision. This man was assessed by the Home Office as aged between 23 and 25 – and now he might be placed in educational settings alongside teenage girls.
“This poses obvious safeguarding risks. We are the only country in Europe not to use scientific age assessment techniques, such as x-rays of the wrist.
“The government must urgently introduce these scientific age tests. Otherwise, our system is being made a mockery of by illegal immigrants falsely claiming to be under 18, aided and abetted by activist lawyers and weak and naive immigration judges.”
Government assessors told the immigration tribunal the Sudanese migrant had a “receding hairline”, had been “shaving for a while” with “thick facial hair”, a broad chest, forehead wrinkles and crow’s feet.
He also gave “inconsistent” answers on his age, name, where he was from and his identity documents. It also claimed he was a “calculated person” who had attempted to conceal information from them.
The asylum seeker arrived in the UK on September 6, 2023 after crossing in a small boat. He fled the war in Sudan and travelled through Libya, Tunisia, Italy and France.
The asylum seeker told the Home Office he was born on April 3, 2007 in Omdurman, near Khartoum, making him 16 years and six months at the time, and therefore a child.
But immigration officials and the London borough of Hounslow, where he was housed, disputed this immediately, putting him to be in the age range of 23 to 25 years – a finding that the Home Office said was confirmed by a full age assessment in April 2024.
The case has prompted renewed fury over how human rights laws are being interpreted by immigration judges. Judge Hugo Norton-Taylor, who oversaw the Gaza case, and Judge Sarah Pinder heard the case.
They ruled in the asylum seeker’s favour and ordered that the Home Office age assessments be quashed.
“It is declared that the applicant’s date of birth is 3 April 2007,” they said. “[Hounslow council] shall hereafter treat the applicant in accordance with his claimed age and provide him with support and services on that basis in accordance with the Children Act 1989.”
In making their ruling, the judges found it was “more likely than not that [the asylum seeker] has provided a true account of his age and date of birth”.
“We find that [he] has been on the whole consistent in his account of how he came to know of his age and date of birth. He has maintained that he grew up knowing his age and date of birth and that he was told this by his mother. [He] became aware of his age when he started attending the Khalwa, where he studied the Quran.”
Tory MP Jack Rankin said: “Each and every day, more dangerous precedent seems to be set. We should simply abolish immigration tribunals. If you lie about your age, you should be refused asylum, not supported by the state with £30k in legal fees and backed by activist judges.”
Home Office officials are examining how judges are applying the rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Daily Express can confirm.
A number of cases will be selected and examined for loopholes, it is understood. This will identify how some human rights lawyers and migrants abuse the law to avoid deportation.
Whilst the work is in its “early stages”, ministers have been warned “too many” foreign criminals have been allowed to stay for reasons which “defy common sense”.
A photograph from April 2024 showed him to have “very light facial hair on his upper lip” at most, the judges said, while noting they had not been asked to rule on claims he had a receding hairline and crow’s feet.
“In light of the cumulative assessment we have undertaken and the findings set out above, and reminding ourselves that we need not simply choose between one party’s case and the other’s, we conclude that it is more likely than not that [he] has provided a true account of his age and date of birth,” said the judges.
