Labour eases checks on illegal migrants

Labour is weakening border restrictions aimed to prevent illegal migrants from getting citizenship and requiring them to submit to scientific age checks.The Home Office is removing Conservative-era rules that made it nearly impossible for small boat arrivals to become UK citizens. It is also repealing regulations that allowed ministers to treat asylum seekers who refused to undergo scientific age verification as adults.Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the move was a “total capitulation to people smugglers” and would “make the UK the soft touch of Europe”.

Government sources argued the Tories had made “such a mess” of introducing the powers that they had never even been used since they were passed.Home Office ministers last week published a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which they say will help tackle the small boats crisis.The small print of the legislation reveals the Government will repeal swathes of a previous Tory law, the Illegal Migration Act, which was only voted through Parliament in 2023.

That act included a provision which meant that almost anyone who entered the country illegally was ineligible for settled status and ultimately citizenship.It also featured another clause which stated that asylum seekers could be treated as over 18 if they refused to take a scientific age assessment.

‘Dangerous young men’

Mr Philp told The Telegraph: “It will lead to dangerous young men being placed with teenage girls and makes the UK the soft touch of Europe.

“Starmer is a weak Prime Minister. He is weak on borders and is weak when it comes to protecting our borders, our children and our people.

“I will fight tooth and nail against this craven capitulation to illegal immigrants and people smugglers when the Bill comes to Parliament.”

Children are much more likely to be granted refugee status, and there are fears smugglers are actively advising migrants to claim they are minors.

In the first half of last year more than 1,300 illegal migrants were caught pretending to be minors after their cases were flagged by officials.

Official figures show that in the year up to last September three quarters of unaccompanied minors were granted asylum, compared with half of adults.

Those arrivals who are classified as under-18s are also given school places and housed by local councils rather than sent to migrant hotels.

Currently, small boat arrivals undergo an initial assessment by two Home Office staff who judge their “physical appearance and demeanour”.

To classify someone who is claiming to be a child as an adult it must “very strongly suggest they are significantly over 18 years of age”.

All other major European countries, including France and Germany, use medical tests to help determine the ages of younger asylum seekers.

They involve X-rays of hand and wrist bones and molar teeth, as well as MRI scans of knee bones and collar bones.

Powers to conduct such assessments in the UK were voted through in the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act, but they are yet to be put into practice.

That legislation said that officials must treat a migrant’s refusal to submit to such tests as “damaging” to the credibility of their claim to be a child.In the 2023 Illegal Migration Act, then Tory ministers gave themselves power to go further and say that in event of refusal they were to be treated as an adult.

Labour has said it will retain the weaker powers from 2022 and that it reserves the right to legislate to introduce stronger sanctions if necessary.

A government source dismissed criticisms that it was going soft on border controls, saying the Tories had “failed” to control illegal immigration.

“Labour will continue to use age assessment and won’t hesitate to go further in legislation if needed,” they said.

The ban on citizenship had been criticised for leaving asylum seekers in limbo, meaning that their claims could not be considered.

Labour has vowed to clear the 177,000-strong backlog, which has led to 35,000 migrants being put up in hotels at a cost of £3 billion per year.

Suella Braverman, the former home secretary who introduced the Illegal Migration Act, accused Labour of “decriminalising illegal migration”.

She said the Border Security Bill “removes all the security and provisions we had put into place to keep the UK safe and is a disgrace”.

“To put it bluntly, it is an insult to the British people. It shamefully opens up our borders and disgracefully allows illegal immigrants to become citizens,” she said.

“If you enter the UK illegally, you should be detained, deported, and banned from ever returning.”

Rupert Lowe, the Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, said: “Our asylum system is already as soft as a boiled maggot. Zero tolerance is required.

“It is abundantly clear that thousands of males are fooling the incompetent Home Office through lies over their age, sexuality, religion and more.

“It is a scam. The word of the migrant is often taken as the truth, with ‘the benefit of the doubt’ regularly implemented as official policy.”Labour said its reforms would deter crossings by introducing significant new jail terms for migrants who delay being rescued until reaching UK waters.

The new Border Security Bill will introduce an offence of endangering life at sea, which will attract a maximum five-year jail term.

It is designed to deter those migrants who deliberately obstruct rescue efforts while they are in French waters so that they can reach the UK.

The legislation will also make it illegal to handle or supply small boat parts, engines, or life jackets for use in crossings, imposing 14-year prison terms.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The new Border Security Asylum and Immigration Bill introduces workable measures to strengthen cross-system, operational efforts to tighten border security, enhance upstream work with international partners and help ensure a properly functioning, secure immigration system.

“The Illegal Migration Act has largely not been commenced (including this measure on age assessments); nor will it be under this Government’s policy which focuses on delivering long-term, credible policies that restore order to the asylum system.

“We have robust processes in place to verify and assess an individual’s age where there is doubt, including the National Age Assessment Board, and have maintained the provisions on scientific assessments from the Nationality & Borders Act 2022.”