The truth about asylum seeker hotels

SPECIAL REPORT BY JOSEPH TIMAN: As protests continue outside hotels housing people seeking asylum in our region, the Manchester Evening News looks at how we ended up in this situation, what the government is planning to do about it and where asylum seekers will go when the hotels are closed.

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As protests continue outside hotels housing people seeking asylum in our region, the Manchester Evening News looks at how we ended up in this situation, what the government is planning to do about it and where asylum seekers will go when hotels are finally closed.

For much of the last two decades, the number of people claiming asylum in the UK remained below 40,000 a year, only just exceeding this threshold during the European migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, and again in 2019, just before the pandemic.

The number of decisions made on asylum claims, most of which are approved, had also stayed fairly stable in recent years.

That was until 2020 when the Covid lockdown saw the number of asylum decisions plummet as the process was effectively paused.

Meanwhile, as the world emerged from the pandemic, the number of asylum applications began to skyrocket, reaching record highs.

The Home Office has been criticised for allowing this backlog of asylum claims to build up, with many linking this to the use of hotels.

Among them is Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU), an organisation which offers support to people seeking asylum.

"The large-scale use of hotels came about because Home Office decision-making stalled during the pandemic and a backlog built up," a spokesperson for GMIAU said. "After the pandemic, the Home Office continued to fail to make decisions on cases throughout 2022. And then the last government introduced further delays through the Illegal Migration Act in 2023, which effectively barred most people seeking sanctuary from claiming asylum."

Several sources told the M.E.N. that the number of asylum seekers who required housing while their claims were being processed had become so high because of this backlog that there was a 'supply issue' when it came to accommodation, leading to the use of hotels.