I was interviewing ten foster parents in west London for a report on children in care. Foster parents are in great demand, so I was startled to discover that only one of the sets of parents was looking after the sort of vulnerable children you imagine to be in the care system. The others were looking after unaccompanied asylum-seeker children.
They made an alarming claim: three of these seemed to be adults passing themselves off as boys. ‘The first thing they ask for is a razor,’ said one foster parent, ‘They’ve got these big beards.’ A woman admitted she found it embarrassing having a grown man posing as a 17-year-old. But the authorities appeared uninterested. ‘Our concerns are just fobbed off,’ said another.
A counter-extremism expert told me: ‘There is nothing in the system to stop a 26-year-old Isis fighter coming here, stating he is 17 and claiming asylum.’
Anyone forced to flee his or her country with a well-founded fear of persecution can claim asylum. An orphan under 18 has special rights. They receive the same benefits as a child taken into care. No one would begrudge a genuine child refugee these privileges. The problem is the system is open to abuse, and the latest terrorist attack in Parsons Green raises further questions. Ahmed Hassan is an 18-year-old unaccompanied asylum seeker who is alleged to have built the bomb in his foster parents’ kitchen.
We do not know how he came here or what could have led him to do what he is accused of. But it is time, surely, to question our asylum system for refugee children. Yet raise concerns and you risk Gary Lineker labelling you ‘hideously racist and utterly heartless’.
The problem is sorting myth from fact. The first myth, emphasised over and over again, is that these are vulnerable children.
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