Hundreds of migrant children put at ‘significant’ risk after being wrongly treated as adults

Hundreds of migrant children have been exposed to “serious risk” in hotels or detention centers after they were wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office, a new report has found.

At least 755 children last year were mistakenly placed in adult accommodation or detention centers after authorities concluded they were adults during visual assessments at the border, according to data reported by the Helen Bamber Foundation.

Freedom of Information (FOI) data from 85 local authorities in England and Scotland shows there were 1,504 referrals to the council’s children’s services department in 2025 for young people who were sent to Home Office adult accommodation but claimed to be children.

The human rights aid organization, which has been following the issue for the last four years, said that 52 percent of the 1,454 cases evaluated for age were found to be children. But he warned the real number could be significantly higher as not all councils share relevant data.

On Thursday, for the first time, the government published figures on how many migrants’ ages were assessed and what the results of those assessments were.

It was revealed that by March 2026, 6,420 people had undergone an initial age assessment and seven percent of those seeking asylum had gone through this process.

Approximately 43 percent of the immigrants who were subjected to age assessment by Ministry of Internal Affairs officials or municipal employees were determined to be adults, while the remaining 57 percent were children.

The data revealed that from July to December 2025, 326 immigrant children were identified as adults before the decision was overturned. 377 more people are waiting for the decision regarding their age.

Kamena Dorling, policy director at the Helen Bamber Foundation, said the Home Office’s publication of this data for the first time was a “major step forward”.

He added: “Despite growing evidence of the profound harm caused, the Home Office continues its practice of misrepresenting children who come to the UK alone to seek protection as adults.

“These are children placed with strangers in adult accommodation, immigration detention sites and even adult prisons. Change is urgently needed to prevent more children from coming to harm. The Home Office must recognize this is a serious security failure.”

More than 70 children, whose ages were disputed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were detained to be sent to France under the government’s “one in, one out” plan, according to data collected by the charitable Human Rights Network.

According to the report, 26 of 76 asylum seekers of disputed age have been released and are under the care of child social services. Guard.

Independent In March, it was revealed that a boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been charged with endangering the lives of migrants crossing the Channel under a controversial new law.

Although he was considered under 18, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that the investigation was in the public interest due to the “seriousness of the offence”.

At a hearing at Canterbury Crown Court, Judge James, honorary registrar of Canterbury, asked the prosecution to explain why the CPS was pursuing the case; because the only conviction available would be a referral order requiring a young person to meet with a panel of people supporting rehabilitation.

David Bolt, the former independent chief border and immigration inspector, found Home Office officials used factors such as “lack of eye contact” when making age decisions and said he had heard evidence from lawyers and charities that children were being “pressured” to declare they were over 18.

Ministers now plan to replace human judgment with AI facial recognition technology, in a move that charities and rights groups say amounts to an experiment that will lead to “serious, life-changing consequences for immigrants”.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the aim is for centennial age estimation to be “fully integrated into the existing age assessment system by 2026”.

It is not yet clear whether the AI ​​age estimation technology will be used on children arriving in the UK on small boats or to inform final asylum claim decisions. The Home Office said the technology would be used to assist authorities and that no final decision had been made on which stage of the process it would be integrated into.

A Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesman said: “Robust age assessments are a vital tool in maintaining border security, so we are streamlining this process by testing fast and effective AI age estimation technology.

“If uncertainty about age remains, the person will be treated as a child. The local government will then conduct a comprehensive assessment using established age assessment techniques.”