LONDON (AP) — The dilemma of how to house asylum seekers in Britain got more challenging for the government after a landmark court ruling this week motivated opponents to fight hotels used as accommodation.
Politicians on the right capitalized on a temporary injunction that blocked housing asylum seekers in a hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London, to encourage other communities to also go to court.
The issue is at the heart of a heated public debate over how to control unauthorized immigration that has bedeviled countries across the West as an influx of migrants seeking a better life as they flee war-torn countries, poverty, regions wracked by climate change or political persecution.
In the U.K., the debate has focused on the arrival of migrants crossing the English Channel in overloaded boats run by smugglers and escalating tensions over housing thousands of asylum seekers at government expense around the country.
Here’s a look at the issue:
The hotels
The government is legally obligated to house asylum seekers. Using hotels to do so had been a marginal issue until 2020, when the number of asylum seekers increased sharply and the then-Conservative government had to find new ways to house them.
There have been more than 27,000 unauthorized arrivals so far this year, nearly 50% higher than at the same point last year and ahead of the number at this time of year in 2022, when a record 45,755 came ashore.
The number of asylum seekers housed in hotels stood at just over 32,000 at the end of June, according to Home Office figures released Thursday. That figure was up 8% from about 29,500 a year earlier but far below the peak of more than 56,000 in September 2023.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001. In May, the National Audit Office said those temporarily living in hotels accounted for 35% of all people in asylum accommodation.
The Epping case
Anti-migrant protesters and counter-protesters gathered for weeks outside the Bell Hotel in Epping after news that a hotel resident tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and was charged with sexual assault. The man has denied the accusation and is due to stand trial later this month.
Epping Forest District Council sought a temporary injunction to shut down the hotel because of “unprecedented levels of protest and disruption,” which had led to several arrests.
The High Court decision in favor of the council has the potential to spread elsewhere and government ministers are scrambling to work out what they can do if other councils manage to win similar rulings.
However, the Epping decision was based on planning laws, which may not apply elsewhere.
The politics
Many politicians, such as Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage, have sought to link many of the problems the country faces, such as health and housing, with migrant arrivals.
Others, including the government, argue that the likes of Farage are whipping up the issue for political gain and that there are no easy answers to an issue affecting many European countries.
The leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, urged Tory councils all over the country to launch legal challenges similar to that of Epping if their legal advice allowed.
The ruling Labour Party dismissed her appeal as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense,” but several Labour-led councils have also suggested they, too, could mount legal action against asylum hotels in their areas.
The worry is that the tensions could explode into the sort of violence that ravaged many towns and cities in England last summer in the wake of a stabbing rampage at a dance class that left three girls dead and several wounded.
Government options
The government’s first priority is to sharply decrease the number of dangerous channel crossings.
Having ditched the Conservative administration’s plan to send migrants who arrived by unauthorized means to Rwanda, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government would disrupt the gangs profiting off migrant trafficking.
The government is also looking to speed up processing asylum claims and hoping a deal with France to send migrants who cross the channel back back to France will succeed as a deterrent for others.
Whether those plans succeed or not, however, the issue of what to do with the tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the country remains.
Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said the government is looking for contingency options.
The government scrapped the use of a barge to house migrants off the south coast earlier this year and plans to end housing at military barracks in Kent next month. But a former air base in Essex is expected to add more beds for men seeking asylum.
The easiest option would most likely house asylum seekers in the private sector, but that risks compounding problems in the rental market in a country where housebuilding has been low for years.
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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this story.
