Bone tests reveal 80% of “minor” migrants in France are actually ADULTS

 A French department recently revealed that a whopping 80 percent of underaged migrants have lied about being minors and are actually adults.

Charles de Courson, a French MP of the center-right Union of Democrats and Independents, told the French General Assembly that the vast majority of unaccompanied migrants in France's northeast Marne department who declared themselves as minors are not really minors.

The translated speech also showed that in de Courson's department, where there are 240 of the alleged minors, bone analyses revealed that 80 percent of them were not minors.

According to de Courson, in the department of Marne, which is home to an estimated one percent of France's population, the cost of caring for the 160 false minors is €5,000 ($5,387.85) per month or €60,000 ($64,654.20) per year for each person.

Migrants in France have a significant motive to lie about their age because doing so gives them access to several financial benefits and ensures that they are not eligible for deportation.

De Courson is encouraging the federal government to take responsibility for the migrants instead of the local departments, which are ill-equipped to deal with the financial burden they represent. 

The French politician added that the real problem lies in administrative organization.

The departments are in charge of unaccompanied minors and the federal government for the rest. De Courson advised that it would be better if the federal government will take care all of them.

According to de Courson, doing so can help avoid the division between the federal government and the departments. "We must be rid of this bad administrative organization with a reform that would say that the state is responsible for the totality of them," said de Courson.

Migrants often take advantage of France and other countries

But this issue is not new in France.

As previously reported, Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians made up more than 75 percent of unaccompanied minors in France in 2019. A parliamentary report has also warned that many of these minors could be adults.

Of the three nations, Algerians were overwhelmingly represented since almost 50 percent of unaccompanied minors came from that nation.

In the report, prosecutors Remy Heitz and Aude Groualle said a majority of adult migrants take advantage of the protective regime guaranteed in a law from 1945 and pretend to be minors.

One experiment conducted by the Paris prosecutor's office in 2019 found that in a group of 154 people formally identified as minors, an overwhelming 141 of them were adults based on medical examinations, meaning 91.6 percent of the group were lying about their age.

Cases of adult migrants lying about their age are also common in other countries. One study from Belgium showed that at least 73 percent of "underage migrants" were actually adults.

In Sweden, results revealed that 84 percent of "child migrants" tested by Swedish health authorities were actually adults aged 18 or older.

A study from Germany conducted by researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Munster has shown that many underage immigrants often lie about their age.

For the study, the university clinic’s forensic specialists analyzed data from around 600 so-called unaccompanied minor refugees whose age was questioned on behalf of the courts. The institute reported that at least 40 percent of them were "demonstrably 18 years of age or older."