UK
UK’s Use of Hotel to House Asylum Seekers Scrutinized by Judge
Police officers outside the the Bell Hotel in Epping, UK, in August.
Photographer: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty ImagesA hotel housing asylum seekers is in “serious and flagrant” breach of planning rules, lawyers for a local council argued at a London trial that threatens to derail the ruling Labour Party’s immigration policy.
Judges will decide whether the hotel northeast of London in Epping Forest District Council violated the rules by taking on the asylum seekers after they arrived on small boats ia the English Channel. The hotel owner and the UK government opposed the council’s request to ban the hotel from housing migrants.