Small boat migrants housed in asylum hotels are having babies because they think it will boost their chances of gaining a British passport, a new documentary has revealed.
Asylum seekers told the programme they were having children in the belief it would automatically ensure the mother and baby both secure the documentation, a hope the show insisted was 'misguided'.
'They do believe it gives them more entitlement to benefits, maybe better choice of accommodation and make it harder for the Home Office to deport them,' BBC reporter Sue Mitchell said on the documentary.
'One of the first babies I meet is proudly held aloft by his father – they arrived from Somalia just weeks earlier and he tells me this is a "British baby", born on "British soil", who will one day, he believes, hold a British passport.'
But asylum seekers who have children in the UK can still be deported by the Home Office, although the Refugee Council's Jon Featonby insisted they qualified for extra safeguards which make this harder.
