First Calais Jungle migrant children under 13 board bus for the UK – more than a week after much older refugees were sent
Youngsters finally board bus to the UK a week after much older migrant 'children' arrived in the country
THE first children believed to actually qualify under the agreement allowing migrant kids from the Calais Jungle safe passage to the UK are said to now be on a bus to Britain.
The claim was made by humanitarian organisation Help Refugees UK who tweeted that the first kids under 13s seeking a better life were on their way across the channel today.
The news comes days after we revealed kids crying out for a new life in Britain were being elbowed out of the way by migrants twice their size.
Last week an immigration source told The Sun the oldest looking man among the first 14 arrivals was still sticking to his story.
The source said: “He continued to tell the Home Office he is a minor when they interviewed him. He says he comes from Afghanistan and will meet his older brother to start a new life in Britain.”
The unnamed migrant, wearing a blue hoodie, walked out of the Home Office building in Croydon, South London, clutching a form titled “application for bio-metric residence permit”.
Another had a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “You can’t stop me”.
In Calais aid workers heaped further doubt on the screening process. One said: “It’s a complete mess.
“Those at the front of the queue are not the most needy and vulnerable. They are adults pretending.”
Another said: “I know there are vulnerable kids who are still here that have family in the UK they could be with right now.
“It’s a shambles. Children are not being told what they are queuing up for, they are not being given information, there is complete confusion.”
There are around 1,200 minors stranded in the camp, which is due to be demolished.
The children pictured by Help Refugees UK are believed to be the first to be sent to Britain who qualify under the Alf Dubs Amendment.
The amendment grants refuge to particularly vulnerable individuals, such as those who are unaccompanied and without family ties in the UK.
On Monday a number of migrants arrived in the Devon village of Great Torrington after it was announced the sleepy countryside area would receive as many as 70 refugees in the coming days.
The Home Office said they are unaccompanied, vulnerable children – but a source said that most of those expected in Devon are over 16.
A number of older looking 'minors' were later pictured in the area playing basketball.
Locals dubbed the decision "bizarre" and questioned why residents had not been consulted.
Official figures show that more than than two-thirds of the so-called ‘child refugees’ who had their ages assessed by the Home Office were found to actually be adults.
Data from the year ending in June revealed that 1,060 asylum applicants' ages were called into question.
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Of the 933 who were recorded as having an age assessment, 636 (68%) were deemed to be over 18.
From January 2006 to June 2016, 11,847 applicants were assessed for their age, of whom 5,278 (45%) were found to be over 18.
Tory MP David Davies has called for tests on teeth to verify the age of teenage migrants after he said a number who arrived in the UK from Calais "don't look like 'children".
Despite criticism for his stance he defended the idea, saying the authorities should not be "naive" about the issue of adults trying to get into the UK.
He said refugees who had been through an ordeal to reach the UK would not be concerned about having their age checked.
"Someone who is willing to throw themselves on to an electrified rail line or jump into a moving lorry isn't going to be terribly worried about having an X-ray,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"We must not be naive about this. It's no good Lily Allen turning up with tears in her eyes and all the rest of it - we need to be quite hard-nosed here.
"People are desperate, I understand that, and they will say what they need to say to get in.
"When I was in the camp in Calais there were caravans with notices on saying 'Come here, we will coach you in what to say to get into the UK'."
He added: "People in Britain, I think, want to help children but we don't want to be taken for a free ride either by people who seem to have got to the front of the queue even though they clearly look, in some cases, a lot older than 18."
Mr Davies also said he did not accept that it was "intrusive" to take an X-ray of a migrant.
Tory MP Ranil Jayawardena, who sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “I think the British public will be very surprised to see that, instead of primary school-aged children arriving, we are finding young men, perhaps even adults, coming across our border.
“I don’t think this is what Parliament intended at all. Parliament was trying to support those who most need our help — and instead find they were actually helping those with the sharpest elbows.
“This demonstrates that knee-jerk responses led by certain MPs in response to very emotive pictures doesn’t always result in what Parliament or the British public want.”
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