Home Office threatens asylum seekers with homelessness if they refuse hotel move

Asylum seekers hazard becoming stateless if they garbage accommodation nether plans to extremity the usage of costly hotels.

Announcing the argumentation connected Friday, the Home Office said immoderate migrants were "gaming the system" by resisting efforts to determination them into alternate lodging without a valid reason.

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The caller Failure to Travel argumentation means lodging enactment volition beryllium removed from those who artifact transportation requests.

The Home Office said this volition "ensure individuals who are moved from hotels to suitable alternate accommodation indispensable instrumentality it".

They added: "Those who garbage to determination without a valid crushed volition present hazard losing their lodging and support. It is simply a steadfast but just approach, aimed to extremity maltreatment of asylum enactment and lend towards the closure of costly edifice accommodation.

"While the authorities has a work to enactment each asylum seekers who would different beryllium destitute successful due accommodation, the caller argumentation establishes wide consequences for those who crippled the strategy whilst protecting the vulnerable."

There would beryllium respective steps earlier stripping idiosyncratic of accommodation - with it being a past resort, Sky News understands.

It follows a week of unrest outside a edifice successful Epping utilized to location asylum seekers.

Several demonstrations person been held extracurricular the Bell Hotel since 13 July, aft an asylum seeker was charged with allegedly attempting to buss a 14-year-old girl.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, from Ethiopia, denied sexually assaulting the 14-year-old miss astatine Chelmsford Magistrates' Court past week and volition basal proceedings successful August.

On Thursday Epping assembly unanimously voted to impulse the authorities to unopen the site.

Ministers are nether unit to reconstruct bid amid fears of further unrest, similar that seen successful Southport past summer.

Labour has pledged to extremity the usage of asylum hotels by the extremity of this parliament, a determination chancellor Rachel Reeves has claimed volition prevention £1bn a year.

However determination is simply a question people arsenic to however this volition beryllium achieved arsenic Channel Crossings proceed to rise. Nearly 20,000 migrants made the travel to the UK successful the archetypal six months of this year, a emergence of astir 50% connected the fig crossing successful 2024 and a caller grounds for the archetypal fractional of a year.

Ministers accidental they inherited a "broken system", with 400 hotels being utilized to accommodate asylum seekers astatine the highest of the situation nether the Tories, costing £9 cardinal per day.

Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, said: "We inherited an asylum strategy connected the brink of illness - mismanaged, nether strain, and costing the nationalist a fortune. We are getting a grip.

"We are moving to adjacent hotels, reconstruct order, and enactment fairness and worth for wealth astatine the bosom of our asylum system. This authorities is making those indispensable decisions to support the payer and uphold the integrity of our borders.

"These reforms to the Failure to Travel argumentation are different illustration of this government's enactment to alteration the asylum accommodation strategy and ace down connected those who maltreatment our system, truthful it operates reasonably and saves the payer money."