Stand for Our Sovereignty’s report exposes how many ‘17 year-old’ asylum seekers… aren’t
“6ft tall, balding 17 year-olds with beards?” – The adult migrants pretending to be children
Many readers will have seen pictures of asylum seekers from boats claiming to be 17 and not looking a day under 30. This has been commented upon, but no mainstream media organisation has been able to publish any facts on this alleged phenomenon for its readers, viewers or listeners – until today.
Exclusively with GB News, Stand for Our Sovereignty and Facts4EU can now reveal the results of our research into official data we have uncovered from Home Office records and other information.
Proof: You are nearly 50% more likely to be approved if you are alone and say you are under 18
Children (those under the age of 18) are treated very differently when it comes to asylum. Firstly they have a better chance of being given leave to stay, and secondly there is well-held opinion that they will receive better treatment overall.
This report reveals the three essential elements to this story and provides the facts and figures which everyone has been wanting to know for so long.
SUMMARY
1. The benefit of doubt that is given to ‘under 18’ migrants suspected of being 18 or older
2. How much better are migrants’ chances if they claim to be under 18 years-old?
3. How many ‘under 18s’ are found to be much older?
Background to what follows: Overall age breakdown of illegal boat migrants
1. The benefit of the doubt given by the Home Office in ‘age dispute cases’
“An age dispute case refers to an applicant who does not have credible documentary or other persuasive evidence to demonstrate their age claimed, 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.”
The Home Office goes on to say that these 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 their own officers they stress this and warn 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. No ambitious officer would take that 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”. 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. In the final section of this report at how many migrants could be affected if this were the case.
2. How much better are migrants’ chances if they claim to be under 18 years-old?
Below are the initial asylum grant rates for unaccompanied under-18s compared to those who admit to being aged 18-24.
Grant rate for initial asylum applications by age, year to Jun 2025
Applications from unaccompanied under-18s only, versus applications from adults aged 18-24
- Approval rate for unaccompanied under-18s : 84.0%
- Approval rate for adults aged 18-24: 56.5%
You have nearly a 50% better chance (48.7%) of being approved if you are unaccompanied and claim to be under 18,
than if you admit to being in the 18-24 age bracket.
Note: We are showing what are effectively the ‘yes/no’ decisions, after excluding those whose applications were withdrawn or who disappeared.
Join us here – UK sovereignty needs you! – Introductory 50% off standard Membership!
(ANNUAL Memberships, lasting 12 months from the date you join. Cancel any time – membership continues until expiry and you won’t be charged again.)
– very much welcomed – in addition to or instead of the above
(Stand for Our Sovereignty is a campaigning division of CIBUK)
The three Membership levels offer increasing levels of privileges. PLEASE NOTE: The standard Sovereign Membership is currently £12/yr (approx 3p per day) and is an introductory price at 50% off. It will soon rise to the full £24/yr so hurry! We need as many Members as possible to give us the funds to put up a professional fight, so please tell your friends and family!
Big-hitter who believes in sovereignty and wants to see their money make a real difference?
If you are a potential large donor, then please contact our Chairman here.
All monies are handled by CIBUK, the oldest-established organisation for independence in the UK, founded in 1969. We trust this will give everyone confidence that their money will be managed properly and spent effectively on Stand for Our Sovereignty’s work.
Don’t leave this to someone else. You are that ‘someone else’.
3. How many ‘under 18s’ are found to be much older?
In another exclusive shared with GB News, Stand for Our Sovereignty has uncovered the latest information from its deep dive into Home Office files, showing what proportion of cases the Home Office disputed and won.
Those claiming to be under 18 but found to be 18 or older, year to June 2024 (latest figures)
- Those claiming to be under 18 : 4,727
- Those accepted to be under 18 : 2,854
- Found to be 18+ in reality : 1,873 (39.6% of total age disputes resolved)
So, almost 40% of all age disputes brought by the Home Office found that the ‘under 18’ applicants were actually 18 or older
Under Sir Keir Starmer, how many young men might have been pretending to be children?
The key thing here is that we know that officers are advised to proceed with great caution because of the need to avoid causing ‘great emotional harm’ to any genuine migrants aged 17 or under, if their age is questioned. No reasons are given in the Home Office guidance to its officers why requiring a migrant to prove his age could cause ‘great emotional harm’. Unlike in some EU countries, migrants in the UK are not required to undergo any medical exam, x-rays, etc.
We also know officers are told only to contest a migrant’s age if “the person’s physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests they are significantly over the age of 18.”
It is only after these conditions are met that any officers decide to open the ‘age dispute’ process. It is therefore reasonable to assume that a proportion of migrants aged 18-24 are unlikely to be subject to any formal process.
The Stand for Our Sovereignty team has been working on this ‘Asylum Special’ series for many weeks. These reports, co-produced with Facts4EU.Org, have all been covered extensively by GB News: in its digital online newspaper and on its TV output.
Readers will be able to see this fourth report in the series being discussed on the Martin Daubney show this afternoon (Thurs, 04 Sept 2025) from 3pm and again on the Farage show from 7pm. One of our Vice-Chairmen, Ben Philips, will be going through it with Martin, and he will also have some extra information not in this report. We will post the link here as soon as we have it.
It is impossible to know how many illegal migrants aged 18+ have been able to fool the system and pass for 17 years old or under. We only know the numbers of those who have been caught. All we can do is state some figures and percentages which might give some idea of the scale of the problem.
- We know that when a migrant is subjected to an age investigation, they must look significantly older than 18, let alone 17 which is the maximum age to be classified as a child
- Despite this high bar, we also know that in these cases 40% are found to have been lying
- In the last two years for which there is data (to June 2024), these totalled over 3,500 migrants who were caught
If the Home Office had doubled the number they investigated,
then this is likely to have meant 3,500 more migrants caught trying to increase their chances by 50%
Finally, to give some idea of the overall numbers involved
Those who pretend to be under 18 are likely to be in the 18-24 age bracket
In Starmer’s first 12 months there were an additional 14,664 illegal boat migrants aged 18-24
CONCLUSION AND OBSERVATIONS
This report in our ‘Asylum Special’ series is the result of weeks of intense investigations by Stand for Our Sovereignty, with important assistance from the Facts4EU team, and has been produced in association with GB News.
For the first time, the public now has some official data to back up their suspicions that the asylum system is being abused in respect of illegal migrants claiming to be under the age of 18. Here is a summary.
We have more questions, but unfortunately we can only work off the official information which the Home Office has, even including those files which are not released publicly as part of its quarterly reporting.
Who can enter and stay in any country is a sovereign issue
It is the sovereign right of any country and its people to decide who to allow to enter its country and who to allow to remain. Whilst the British people are famously tolerant and very sympathetic to those in dire need, these qualities have been pushed to breaking point over many years, under successive governments. This has been caused by increasing abuses of the system. As the years have gone on, the role played by foreign bodies in interfering in this sovereign right has added to the frustration of the people.
This report is Part IV in a our ‘Asylum Special’ series. We hope readers have found the series to be enlightening and helpful. The substantial cost has mostly been borne by one member of the Stand for Our Sovereignty team, with the remainder coming from membership fees. We have also worked closely with Facts4EU who have 10 years of experience in analysing complex official data. We receive no corporate funding or funding from foreign billionaires, which is the case for all those organisations lined up against us which are promoting open borders.
We now seriously need thousands more people to join – for two reasons. Firstly because it is only with Membership fees (or one-off donations if you prefer) that we have any money to operate, and secondly because the larger our Membership, the louder our voice in Westminster. We are currently working actively with senior politicians and top legal experts to use every available means to force the government to act to prevent this crisis continuing. This applies across all the areas where British sovereignty is being surrendered or seriously undermined.
If you value the work above, please join Stand for Our Sovereignty as a Member today and please persuade all your friends and family to do the same. You will be supporting us in all our work such as that above. We have serious plans to slow down, halt, and reverse the current government’s plans to surrender more and more of our sovereignty, whether it is by population replacement, or in giving away British territory, or giving back power over our laws to the EU and other foreign bodies. We can only do this with widespread public support, and that starts with you!
Join us here – UK sovereignty needs you! – Introductory 50% off standard Membership!
(ANNUAL Memberships, lasting 12 months from the date you join. Cancel any time – membership continues until expiry and you won’t be charged again.)
– very much welcomed – in addition to or instead of the above
(Stand for Our Sovereignty is a campaigning division of CIBUK)
The three Membership levels offer increasing levels of privileges. PLEASE NOTE: The standard Sovereign Membership is currently £12/yr (approx 3p per day) and is an introductory price at 50% off. It will soon rise to the full £24/yr so hurry! We need as many Members as possible to give us the funds to put up a professional fight, so please tell your friends and family!
Big-hitter who believes in sovereignty and wants to see their money make a real difference?
If you are a potential large donor, then please contact our Chairman here.
All monies are handled by CIBUK, the oldest-established organisation for independence in the UK, founded in 1969. We trust this will give everyone confidence that their money will be managed properly and spent effectively on Stand for Our Sovereignty’s work.
Don’t leave this to someone else. You are that ‘someone else’.
‘Asylum Special’ Menu
Part I – ‘EXPOSED: Since Sir Keir, there are 2,760 more asylum seekers in hotels‘
Part II – ‘Latest Starmer embarrassment: 87% of boat migrants are male – 81% are “men of fighting age”‘
Part III – ‘Exclusive: How Starmer has spread out the increase in migrants across the country‘ (includes interactive maps)
Part IV – ‘‘Age no barrier’ – Finally revealed: the truth about the child migrants who are no such thing‘