With the dangers posed by allowing migrants traveling in ramshackle watercraft to try to enter the United Kingdom, you would think that the country would be doing everything in its power to discourage it. In fact, quite the opposite is happening — at least if a report about their lodging conditions is any indication.
On Friday, the U.K. Telegraph reported that the country’s Home Office — which is somewhat analogous to America’s Department of Homeland Security, albeit with a wider purview — was telling contractors housing so-called “small-boat migrants” that they needed to be housed “at least a minimum of three stars.”
This comes as the costs of housing the migrants approaches the equivalent of roughly $10 million U.S. per day.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman told Parliament she was “very concerned about hotels” and insisted their use was “unacceptable.”
“It is totally unacceptable that too many towns and cities around the country now house the 45,000 asylum seekers who are in hotels,” Braverman said, adding “it is not right that the British taxpayer is forking out the cost.”
However, Braverman’s Home Office has apparently been just doing what it does, not doing what she says.
The Telegraph reviewed the most recent contract that was issued by the Home Office and found this clause under the “mandatory requirements” for hotels that were booked for migrants: “The location of the accommodation will be carried out at locations close to amenities and transport networks. Contracted venues should be at least a minimum of three stars.”
According to the BBC, so-called “small boat arrivals” were responsible for about 45 percent of asylum appliers in the U.K. in 2022, with 45,755 having made the dangerous journey across the English Channel that year.
Numbers in 2019 and 2020 were well below 10,000, but that spiked in 2021. As of Aug. 29, 20,101 individuals have crossed the channel, including 3,824 in June — a record number for that month.
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And while this is a U.K. problem, the roots of one of the largest drivers of illegal immigration by boat to the country could be said to be a failure of President Joe Biden’s administration, as well — namely, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
According to the numbers, Afghanis represent the largest number of asylum seekers in the first half of 2023, with 3,326. Another roughly 3,200 applications came from Iran, with India, Bangladesh and Pakistan trailing them.
However, in 2022, Albanians made up the largest group of asylum-seekers crossing the English Channel, with 12,301 from the European nation making the dangerous journey — roughly 28 percent, according to the BBC.
Now, how often are illegal arrivals put up in three-star hotels?
“A Home Office spokesman said that the vast majority of hotels used to house asylum seekers did not have a minimum star requirement and that the contract with the three star requirement was a ‘contingency contract used minimally,’” the Telegraph reported. “He added that the use of hotels was a temporary solution.”
However, according to LBC Radio, an independent radio broadcaster in the U.K., a new report pegs the government’s spending on illegal immigrant hotel rooms at £3 billion a year, or roughly $3.67 billion U.S.
“We need to stop the boats to relieve the unsustainable pressure on our asylum system and accommodation services, which is costing over £3 billion a year,” the report reads.
“The Illegal Migration Act will ensure anyone arriving illegally can be detained and swiftly removed, so that people know they cannot skip the queue by coming here illegally.
“This goes further than ever before to do what is necessary to fix the issue, but legislative changes take time and there is no single silver bullet. In the meantime, we must take action to address the unacceptable costs of housing migrants in hotels which is costing the taxpayer around £8 million a day.”
Former Conservative Party minister Sir John Hayes told the Telegraph that small-boat migrants ought to “expect a much more basic level of provision” than a minimum three-star hotel: “My constituents wouldn’t expect any illegal immigrant to be housed in a place they couldn’t afford to stay in themselves,” he said.
“We need to provide safe and clean accommodation but it should be basic — three-star is well above the level taxpayers would expect to be funding. In truth, we’ve got to move these people out of hotels altogether.”
Yes, but the idea that there is the will to do this sort of thing in the U.K. is another thing entirely. Keep in mind that the Conservative Party, or Tories, are in power.
Never mind that they haven’t even bothered trying to conserve a single thing about the U.K., they’re basically a slightly paler version of the Labour Party, albeit one that grumbles a little bit more as it gives taxpayers’ money away to the same culprits: an inefficient public health care system, a whole host of other social programs and, of course, subsidizing illegal immigrants.
“It’s pretty obvious that the Home Office has completely failed to get a grip on the use of the hotels,” one anonymous senior Tory told the Telegraph “The Home Secretary’s rhetoric does not match the reality – she says she’s got a grip on this but the situation is out of control.”
At least she can be confident the immigrants will be staying in style, however.
