'People are angry': Behind the wave of asylum hotel protests

Orla Minihane says,

We are not happy with these guys in this hotel because we fear for our children.

If that makes me far-right, then so be it. Orla has lived near Epping since childhood and describes herself as a very boring woman who has lived in London for 25 years. Last year, she joined Reform UK and hopes to run as a local representative for the party. The Bell Hotel, which has since been fortified on a busy road leading to Essex's town, is one of more than 200 around the country where the government houses asylum seekers. Several hundred protesters from both directions - and on one occasion up to 2,000, according to Essex Police - have protested the use of hotels for asylum seekers in the last month. This week, around 20 more people were scheduled for Friday and Saturday. After a man living in the hotel was arrested and charged with sexual assault, harassment, and inciting a girl to partake in sexual activity, the new round of demonstrations began at the 80-room Bell in July. Hadush Kebatu, 41, of Ethiopia, has denied the charges and is detained. The case has sparked a national conversation about the impact of housing asylum seekers in hotels in towns around the United Kingdom.

Before there were women and children in the hotel, there was a little bit of crime, but most people went along with it,

Orla says. "But now it's the fact that it''s all male. It's not a balanced culture.

The demonstrations have been largely supported on social media with slogans like Protect Our Community, Safety of Women and Children Before Foreigners, and

All Patriots Welcome. At some of the demonstrations and activists that condemn them, we have found far-right activists who are keeping an eye on what is going on. Stand Up To Racism, an advocacy group, sees this as far-right groups

stirring up racial violence" and attempting to recreate the brutality that erupted after the murders of three young girls in Southport. However, the demonstrations are often arranged by people with no expertise in street campaigning, including mothers with children and professional careers, such as Orla. That they are involved indicates that in some communities, with hotels close by, there is a change in the public opinion regarding Britain's asylum hotels. A year into his asylum claim and waiting for his fourth Home Office interview, outside The Bell, which is surrounded by steel fencing and shielded by a 24-hour security team, Wael, one of the company's residents, is waiting for her fourth Home office interview.

I spoke with one of the demonstrators, Wael says.

Everything's good. Epping is nice. We can sit and stay. People respect us.

I want to learn English and work. In a car wash or something. I would not sit at home and eat food. I have a dream - to make money and play football, as well as having fun with my free time. It's a small dream.

Wael is able to talk, give his name, and have his photograph taken. However, two other young Iraqi Kurds who are staying at The Bell and are allowed to freely come and go, are more cautious and less optimistic. A gang of youths in masks and motorcycles has just yelled expletives at them, according to them. I happen to see the bikers nearby a few minutes later. According to one of the asylum seekers, being in a hotel room 24 hours a day is causing a lot of anxiety. When I ask about their Home Office dealings, they hurl inside The Bell. A passing driver yells,

Burn it down! " says the driver shortly after. Any protesters attempted to do at other hotels last summer in the aftermath of the Southport murders. During the summer, there have been isolated clashes, when activists from either side of the debate, anti-fascists, and hard-right activists, met each other, or the police. Often, the migrants have watched from the sidelines, penned up behind the fencing, or filming from upstairs windows.

The police have largely maintained control, although some officers have been chastised for their tactics, including the incorrect assertion that Essex Police used buses to transport pro-migrant protesters to a rally in Epping. For the time being, arrest numbers in 2024 are way down from those in 2022. I ask Orla, who gave an empathetic speech at a recent protest, why she is so upset by the asylum hospital. Grabbed by young, non-white men in the neighborhood, she says. She claims she has seen shoplifting in Marks & Spencer's local Marks and Spencer. Everyone knows they are asylum seekers, Orla says, election is very white.You know they're coming for freebies, and when they arrive here, they abuse the privilege. It's ridiculous.

Asylum seekers will claim that they are seeking protection by moving to the United Kingdom, although some are ultimately found not to be eligible for asylum status, although others are not eligible for refugee status. Orla had held a stage with a suspected member of a neo-Nazi group at a hotel protest last month, according to Stand Up To Racism. She told BBC News that she had

no idea" who she was, and that he had since left the company.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the United Kingdom. Successful governments have found that paying for their accommodation and food is preferable to allowing them to compete with British employees in the labour market, giving them a reason to come here. Some asylum seekers may be illegally working as food delivery drivers, according to the government in June. Residents in Canary Wharf, east London, live in gleaming glass towers and traditional East End houses alongside another asylum hotel. It's a very different place, but many locals have shared similar views. During the small hours at the wharf-side four-star Britannia International 610 rooms, asylum seekers were recently welcomed, but not the luxury hotel as described in some publications, according to a former employee. Local people, many of whom were office employees in the Canary Wharf business district, were protested by rumors that they were about to cause demonstrations. Chengcheng Cul, a Chinese immigrant, makes a distinction between his legal migration to the United Kingdom and illegal asylum seekers outside the hotel.

If people can enter the Channel illegally and quickly, what encourages decent people to come legally, pay their taxes, and become active in this culture? Is this setting a good example? Illegal migrants have crossed the border in this region. Lorraine Cavanagh, a charity on the Isle of Dogs, shares the same trembling in Epping.

I don't know who they are.

They are unidentified men who can walk around and do what they want to do with no consequences,

she says. The remark, I don't know who they are, is at the root of the resistance to asylum seekers in these countries.

It's often difficult to determine basic facts about the young men in the hotels, the procedure that put them there, or the effects they may have on locals. Although increasing in number, asylum seekers who board small boats along the English Channel make up a small minority of total immigration to the United Kingdom, and only about a third of all asylum seekers in 2024. Serco, Clearsprings, and Mears are among the three companies that have contracted out the job of accommodating them. They buy rooms in houses and hotels, with some even taking them over completely. Ministers regularly discuss their desire to smash the gangs, but less so about the hotels. Due to fears of being targeted, the government will not disclose where they are located. According to Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory, there is a problem with publishing information about small groups of asylum seekers when it might be difficult to determine them by age or sex, a long-standing problem for public agencies. We know how many hotel rooms are being used in each region, but the overwhelming majority are in the south of England. They cost £5. The government has been waiting for 77 million dollars a day. The estimated cost of the decade to 2029 has increased from £4 to $209. 5bn in 2019 to £15. 3bn. However, there are no official statistics on the age and sex of hotel guests, no information about their countries of origin, or their claim for asylum in the United Kingdom.

So when local authorities suspect criminal rates will rise when asylum hotels are opened or raise concerns about the hotels being full of sole adult males, it's often difficult to prove the point either way. In May, Epping town was charged with 35 sexual and violent offences. 28 sexual and violent offences were recorded in the same month, the year before, when there were no asylum seekers at The Bell. The Hotel was being used by the Home Office for migrant families in May 2023. The number of reported offences was 32. But how many of these offences involved asylum seekers? There are no statistics on where crimes occur or who has been suspected of committing them. So we don't know who they are in some ways. Orla believes that more information will help defuse tensions and that the government's handling of the asylum system is deeply concerning.

People are going to be ecstatic if you conceal the truth and act as if hiding something,

she says.

If they said there are 70 people in the Bell Hotel, five are from Sudan, five from somewhere else, and five are others from somewhere other than Sudan. Chris Whitbread, the Conservative Leader of Epping Forest District Council, recently stated that

it is vital to be open

about asylum hotel details. In a recent report, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, criticized how the Home Office treats asylum hotels.

It is clear that the Home Office has a long way to go to help increase trust and confidence in its ability to be transparent and transparent about its intentions and results," he said. According to the Home Office, 6,000 people were removed from hotels in early 2025 and that 200 hotels have already closed. Labour has stated in its manifesto that they will be finished by the next election. In north London, Sabby Dhalu of the resistance group Stand Up To Racism says the government should work more closely with councils so that their constituents are better informed.

Explaining why these people are here, where they come from, and what's going on in those countries should be included,

she says.

They're in the process of applying for asylum and going through the application process. Settling them in with the community.

I think you've got the right organisations that are determined to repeat the events of last year,she continued.They want to incite racial violence in order to establish their own political organisations, and for their own cynical reasons.

That said, she believes that voices on the right are

whipping up

and weaponizing a broader public's dissatisfaction with Labour's reductions to public service, as well as the government's

making silly compromises to the right in doing so. The government, as well as the Conservatives, find stopping the boats a challenge. The Home Office has been able to minimize the asylum claim backlog, which is now at 79,000, but the claimants keep coming and the cost of housing is increasing. There is a sense that the government is struggling to cope and dismissing the views of people. Many are in agreement that having more than 200 hotels, with a large number of asylum seekers often waiting for lengthy awaiting decisions on their applications, is not a sustainable situation. If or not the latest demonstrations persist, the government will have to find a solution. This has been updated to include more information from Essex Police about the number of protests, including both protesters and counter protesters.