London, UK: There are concerns that Afghan refugees in the UK may lose their homes as a result of deadlines to leave hotels and offers of alternative housing.
After leaving the Taliban’s control in August 2021, there are over 9,000 Afghans residing in hotels in the UK. Ms. Peymana Assad, a Labour councillor from Harrow in north-west London who is of Afghan descent and who has worked closely with Afghan refugees in hotels, claimed that it was the government, not the refugees, who were to blame for people being stuck in hotels.
The announcement is related to, but distinct from, the problem of asylum seekers being housed in hotels while they wait for the outcome of their 50,000 or so applications for refugee status in the UK. Two military installations, RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and RAF Wethersfield in Essex, have reportedly been considered as potential locations to host them.
According to data given to the Commons home affairs committee last year, $6.8 million a day is spent on hotels for people who arrive in the UK and apply for asylum, with another $1.4 million going to Afghan refugees who fled the Taliban. The reports come as the UK government tries to pass a very divisive policy on illegal immigration.
Mr. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, was allegedly secretly aiding the rebels, according to a report from earlier in the week. The Prime Minister, Mr. Rishi Sunak, mostly sidestepped the subject when if she was functioning like a “sock puppet.”