Tag Archives: benefits

A Facebook post that makes misleading claims about immigration has been shared more than 570,000 times. Originally posted on social media in 2012, it has been shared widely in recent weeks.

The post makes several claims about the outcome for someone crossing the border illegally into the UK, compared to other countries such as North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran. 

It says: “SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT… If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years. hard labour. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. Two Americans just got eight years for crossing the Iranian border. [sic]

“If you cross the U.K. border illegally you get a job, a drivers license, food stamps, a place to live, healthcare, housing & child benefits, education, &…

Thousands of people have shared claims on Facebook that “British old age pensioners” get far less annually in benefits than “illegal immigrants/refugees living in Britain”. 

The posts explicitly encourage social media users to share them, claiming that pensioners in Great Britain get a total annual benefit of £6,000 a year, while illegal immigrants and refugees get £29,900. 

We wrote about the same claim more than a decade ago, as well as very similar claims using the same headline figures of £6,000 and £29,000 on social media in 2018 and 2019, and found them to be false. The claims made in the post remain untrue—the totals given are inaccurate and some of the “financial assistance” doesn’t even exist in the UK. 

Claims juxtaposing the amount of…