Labour to ramp up closure of asylum lodges in Spring beneath immigration crackdown | EUROtoday

Ministers will ramp up the closure of migrant lodges in Spring as a part of plans to scale back stress on the asylum system.

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood introduced sweeping adjustments to immigration reforms on the finish of final yr, which included making refugee standing short-term and scrapping the best to household reunion. The Labour authorities has pledged to finish the usage of expensive asylum lodges by 2029, nonetheless, the variety of asylum seekers housed within the controversial lodging has risen year-on-year.

The Home Office is now anticipated to ramp up the closure of lodges in Spring this yr, beneath plans first reported by The I paper.

This shall be facilitated by transferring migrants ready on asylum declare selections into completely different types of lodging. Ministers have pledged to open military barracks to deal with asylum seekers and steered that pop-up buildings may very well be used to create house. More houses of a number of occupation may be used to deal with folks searching for asylum.

The Home Office is hoping to ramp up removals from the UK to liberate resort house. Ms Mahmood has additionally pledged to revoke housing and monetary assist from asylum seekers who’ve the best to work or who’ve damaged the legislation. The dwelling secretary will take away the present authorized obligation to supply assist to asylum seekers who would in any other case be destitute. The authorities has pledged to revoke the responsibility within the coming months and substitute it with a discretionary energy, that can additional prohibit who’s helped.

A senior Whitehall supply instructed The I paper that the one in, one out returns cope with France can even be expanded, and that the federal government is hopeful the same deal may very well be agreed with Germany.

More than 36,000 asylum seekers had been being housed in Home Office lodges in September final yr. The variety of folks in migrant lodges peaked at 56,018 on the finish of September 2023 beneath the Conservatives, however fell to 29,561 on the finish of June 2024.

The whole variety of folks in receipt of asylum assist from the federal government can be up two per cent year-on-year, with 111,651 people getting assist on the finish of September.

MPs warned final yr that billions of kilos had been squandered on asylum resort contracts as a result of poor administration and incompetence on the Home Office.

The influential Home Affairs Committee criticised the extent of accountability and oversight over massive lodging contracts. Migrant lodges grew to become flashpoints of protest final summer season after an asylum seeker in Epping, Essex, sexually asssaulted a 14-year-old woman.

Epping council sought to shut down the resort, taking their authorized battle to the High Court, however had been unsuccessful. The Home Office argued that the federal government would “face considerable difficulties in re-accommodating them [the asylum seeker residents] appropriately” if the resort was shut down.