LONDON (AP) — The dilemma of how to house asylum-seekers in Britain got more challenging for the government after a landmark court ruling this week motivated opponents to fight hotels used as accommodation.
Politicians on the right capitalized on a temporary injunction that blocked housing asylum-seekers in a hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London, to encourage other communities to also go to court.
The issue is at the heart of a heated public debate over how to control unauthorized immigration that has bedeviled countries across the West as an influx of migrants seeking a better life as they flee war-torn countries, poverty, regions wracked by climate change or political persecution.
In the U.K., the debate has focused on the arrival of migrants crossing the English Channel in ove