Protesters took the streets in towns and cities across the United Kingdom on Saturday as demonstrations were held against hotels housing asylum-seekers.

Counter protests also took place in Bristol and Liverpool where police were forced to separate the rival groups.

Rallies were also held in Exeter, Tamworth, Cannock, Nuneaton, Wakefield, Newcastle, Horley in Surrey and Canary Wharf in central London.

The dilemma of how to house asylum-seekers in Britain got more challenging for the government after a landmark court ruling earlier in the 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 overloaded boats run by smugglers and escalating tensions over housing thousands of asylum-seekers at government expense around the country.

The number of asylum-seekers housed in hotels stood at just over 32,000 at the end of June, according to the UK's Home Office figures released on Thursday.

That figure was up 8% from about 29,500 a year earlier but far below the peak of more than 56,000 in September 2023.

A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.