UK threatens to send unhappy asylum seekers 'back to Rwanda': Report

Asylum seekers in the United Kingdom who complain about poor conditions in Home Office-assigned hotels were threatened with "being sent to Rwanda," according to a new report by charity group Refugee Action.

The report, titled "Hostile Accommodation: How the Asylum System Is Cruel By Design", consists of 100 in-depth interviews with asylum seekers conducted in hotels in London, Manchester, the West Midlands, and Bradford, reports The Guardian.

It contains interviews with single persons and families, extensive casework records relating to problems in hotels and other asylum accommodations, and freedom of information (FOI) requests to council environmental health departments.

In addition to being advised not to complain about terrible living conditions or expect deportation to Rwanda, asylum seekers were also told that if they complained about the quality of food supplied to them, police would be contacted.

They were also barred from taking photos of the food, it said.

The system of housing asylum seekers, which presently accommodates over 50,000 people, is "a nationwide system of racialised segregation and de facto detention," said the report.

Asylum seekers are increasingly being kept in hotels for extended periods. One in every three people and one out of every four families with children stays in a hotel for more than a year.

In one example, a family of six lived in a single room for over a year. The report cautioned that if the new immigration bill, now being debated in parliament, is passed, the situation would deteriorate.

Individual cases highlighted in the report include a wheelchair user trapped on the 11th floor of a hotel because of a malfunctioning lift and an accommodation contractor who advised a GP not to write a health support letter for an asylum seeker advocating for a transfer because it would put a strain on the contractor's accommodation system.

Infestations of pests and rodents were prevalent, as were moisture, mildew, and floods. Ceilings have also collapsed resulting in one woman holding a baby and a child being rushed to the hospital in two different occurrences.

"The government is running a system of de facto detention – holding and segregating people seeking asylum in accommodation that is harming their mental and physical health. This demoralising and brutal system costs the taxpayer millions per day but creates huge profits for contractors who are too often failing to make their housing habitable," said Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action.

"We do not recognise the claims in the report suggesting hospitalisations, threats of deportation or restriction of movements, but where concerns are raised about any aspect of the service delivered by the hotel we work with the provider to ensure they are addressed in a timely manner," a UK Home Office spokesperson said.