UK Home Office Ejects Foreign Nurses From York Hotel Rooms to Accommodate Migrants

The small boat Channel crossings crisis shows no sign of abating in the UK, with more than 1,800 migrants arriving in the country last weekend, bringing the total since the start of the year to 41,729.

Foreign nurses living in two York hotels and studying for UK qualifications have been told to move out by the Home Office in its latest bid to house asylum seekers amid Downing Street’s efforts to tackle the migrant crisis.

Polly McMeekin, director of workforce at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said on Monday that at first the Home Office had given the trust four weeks to vacate the hotel because the government wanted to use the facilities for “the next couple of years” to accommodate migrants.

After the trust objected, it was given until December to vacate the hotels’ rooms, according to McMeekin.

“York has a dearth of accommodation. [This] leaves us with no other accommodation – we've explored the military, we've explored universities,” she said, adding that the Home Office’s decision would leave the hospital in a “very vulnerable” position.

The trust’s director of workforce pointed out that “this is a vulnerability in our [the UK's] international recruitment pipeline.”

A critical shortage of British nurses has prodded the trust to recruit from abroad, as the hospital pays for foreign nurses’ accommodation while they take the exams. A UK media outlet reported that right now, there are 82 foreign nurses in one York hotel and 17 more are due to arrive next month.

The outlet also cited York’s Labor MP Rachael Maskell as saying that up to 450 asylum seekers are expected to be housed in the city as of next month. When asked to comment on the nurses being booted out of hotels, she said that “the whole situation is completely broken, that is evident.”

Lee Anderson, Tory MP for Ashfield and Eastwood, for his part told the outlet that the government and “the whole of Parliament should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen.

“Not only do we have lifeboat volunteers kicked out, now it's the turn of our NHS [National Health Service] workers. Where will this stop?” he added, in an apparent nod to media reports earlier this month that Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers had to leave a hotel on the Wirral part-way through their stay to make way for asylum seekers.

The remarks came after Home Secretary Suella Braverman signed a hefty accord with French counterpart Gerald Darmanin as part of No 10’s efforts to resolve the small boat Channel crossings.

Under the deal, the UK's annual payments to France to control illegal immigration will soar by 15 percent from £54.8 million ($64.4 million) to £63 million ($74 million).

In return, France will increase the number of police officers patrolling the English Channel coast by 40 percent, from 200 to about 280, while equipping them with surveillance drones and night vision optics.

Additionally, Paris will invest in more security, including CCTV, other surveillance technology and foot patrols with dogs, at the seaport and Channel Tunnel terminal at Calais to prevent illegal immigrants from stowing away in lorries.

The UK Defense Ministry has meanwhile revealed that more than 41,000 migrants have traveled to Britain across the English Channel since the beginning of 2022. According to the ministry, as of September, the number of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK across the Channel since January exceeded 28,561, which was larger than last year's total of 28,526.