Asylum seekers being moved out of taxpayer-funded motels are merely being moved to different motels nonetheless paid for by the Home Office, Sky News has realized.
The Home Office says it has already closed 50 motels to migrants, one thing that they had pledged to do by the top of this month with a promise to accommodate them in cheaper sorts of lodging just like the Bibby Stockholm barge.
But Sky News has seen taxis filled with migrants leaving one lodge in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, solely to reach at one other lodge 70 miles away in Derbyshire.
One asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who we’re calling Khan, 19, arrived on a small boat in early June 2022. He will now be unable to proceed attending school, the place he was finding out English and GCSE Maths, as his new lodge is just too distant.
He states he had no selection however to maneuver. “The hotel tell us that if you cancel this process you must sleep on the road like a homeless [person],” he says.
Khan got here to the UK as a result of his household labored for the Afghan authorities so he now not felt secure after the Taliban takeover of the nation in 2021.
Due to the size of time he is been ready for a choice his asylum declare is a part of the “legacy” backlog that Rishi Sunak pledged to “abolish” by the top of 2022.
The Home Office mentioned the pledge had been “delivered”, having processed greater than 112,000 asylum claims total in 2023.
It means Khan had anticipated by now to not nonetheless be dwelling in taxpayer-funded lodging.
“I am also not happy to stay in hotel accommodation because I want to work. I want to start a new life and I cannot do something right now… just sleep and eat,” he says.
He at present has a solicitor chasing the Home Office for a choice on his declare.
“Up to now no-one gave me a response, up to December when I emailed them they told us wait up to the end of the year – now the new year start and when we email them, no-one responds.”
A bunch of residents who provide help to individuals searching for asylum has been monitoring the actions of those lodge closures over latest months.
Sarah Frost, lead co-ordinator from Wyre Forest Supports Asylum Seekers, instructed Sky News: “We’ve got four from here who got moved from a hotel that was closing just before Christmas.
“They bought moved right here, and now they’re transferring on to a different lodge. So some individuals have been in 5 – 6 motels in a matter of six months or so.”
She adds: “I suppose [the Home Office is] consolidating motels however clearly it nonetheless prices to feed the particular person…I can not see the way it’s actually saving cash as a result of taxi fares from Derbyshire to Worcestershire goes to price some huge cash.”
Another hotel in Bewdley, Worcestershire, was closed last week, but Sky News has been told the men were sent to three different hotels further north.
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Hallo, not his actual title, 31, from Iraq was despatched by taxi with eight different males to a lodge in Staffordshire.
“It’s just shifting around, just switching…just wasting money”, he says. “I think it’s just because of the next election so they want to tell the native people we sorted out the hotels, the cases, the backlog cases.”
The closure of motels has additionally affected households. Near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, the curtains are shut and kids’s scooters have been deserted outdoors a lodge that was lately closed to migrants.
Sky News has been instructed that youngsters have misplaced faculty locations as a result of they had been moved all of a sudden to a different county.
The Home Office instructed Sky News it’s making vital progress to scale back the price of £8.2m a day to UK taxpayers.
A spokesperson mentioned: “As we exit more hotels in the coming months, we remain upfront about accommodation being on a no-choice basis. This means that individuals may be moved to other parts of the asylum accommodation estate too, including hotels.”
Source: information.sky.com”