UK faces legal challenge over asylum hotel closures after vulnerable families moved
Huda and her two children aged 10 and 12 had been living in two rooms in a London hotel for six months when they were told with just a few days’ notice they would be moved. The 41-year-old engineering graduate from Tunisia fled death threats from extended family and is waiting for an asylum application to be processed.
The Home Office had decided that Staycity, the hotel the family was staying in, would be closed as part of a government pledge that asylum seekers would be moved out of hotels and into military barracks or other forms of shared housing. The move followed protests by anti-migrant activists, with many arguing hotels were too luxurious to accommodate asylum seekers.
On 25 June, the Home Office announced the closure of 20 hotels, following a previous announcement that closed 11 earlier this year. When asylum hotels are closed, people are either moved to other hotels where there is space, sent to military barracks or granted asylum.
Now legal challenges have been launched on behalf of some at the hotel due to concerns about the government’s failure to assess individual vulnerabilities before the mass evictions.
A court order from John Halford, sitting as a deputy high court judge, states that it is “arguable” the home secretary failed to consider the “adequacy” of the accommodation asylum seekers were being moved to from Staycity.
Huda’s 12-year-old daughter uses a wheelchair and has epilepsy and a heart condition. “I have so many different medical supplies just to keep my daughter alive that they take up almost one room on their own,” said Huda.
The family sat in reception waiting for transport to their new hotel from 10am until 7pm. “The new hotel is much worse,” said Huda. “My children and I are dying little by little here. My daughter is sleeping on the floor because she is scared of the bunk bed. The new place is so cramped and there is nowhere to cook for my children.”
Ralitsa Peykova, a solicitor at Deighton Pierce Glynn, the firm mounting challenges against the expedited evictions, said the government’s hotel closures had been complete chaos and a waste of taxpayers’ money. “We have had to issue urgent legal proceedings because our clients are being moved from one hotel to another without any evaluative assessment of their needs,” she said.
Chloe White, the executive director of Action for Refugees in Lewisham, south-east London, which is supporting families moved out of Staycity, said that, while the Home Office repeatedly talked about the success of increased hotel closures, “the reality on the ground is very different and the human cost is high”.
“With successive hotel closures, families are being ripped away from communities, support systems and specialist care at short notice,” she said.
Huda said: “The room in the new hotel they have moved us to is so small I have to change my daughter’s nappies in the corridor. Her medicine needs to be stored in a fridge but we don’t have one in the new place. I’m worried I won’t be able to keep her alive.”
Another asylum seeker at the hotel, Farhad, was handed a Post-it note saying he was being moved the following day. No reason was given.
“The Home Office just don’t care what happens to us,” he said. “I know one person at the hotel [who] was in the middle of chemotherapy treatment for cancer who has been moved far away from the hospital they were receiving treatment at.”
Farhad says he is a victim of trafficking, torture and labour exploitation, and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
“Home Office don’t take people’s suffering into account,” he said. “The hotel the Home Office has put me in will probably close soon and then I’ll be moved again. They moved me away from where I was receiving treatment for my mental health problems.”
A second mother is legally challenging the Home Office decision to move her and her sons 549 miles away to Aberdeen two days before one of the boy’s vital A-level exams. She and her sons are distraught after the interruption to her son’s education.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government will close every asylum hotel, and work is well under way to move asylum seekers into more suitable accommodation.
“The welfare of asylum seekers remains a priority, and we will continue to work closely with providers to ensure that additional needs are accommodated and to minimise disruption wherever possible.”
Some names have been changed.
World Affairs Correspondent
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