What do you think of when you hear the word ‘hotel’?

When The Daily Telegraph argues that home secretary Suella Braverman speaks for “ordinary people” on migration and the treatment of asylum seekers heading to Britain, it is correct. Everything she says echoes the deep misunderstandings and prejudices that are wedged hard in the minds of a large proportion of the British people.

I’m not accusing those “ordinary” people – who are entirely wrong about the migration issue and how to tackle it – of racism, xenophobia or any other great social ill. They are lacking only in two things: public funding for essential public services, and a source of accurate information about what it means to come to the UK as an asylum seeker or refugee.

Braverman has been leaning into the assumption that life as a new arrival in the UK is one of easy transition and straightforward handouts. She chose to push back on block booking for hotel space to house asylum seekers because she knows how that feels to people who are struggling to feed their children, facing ever-rising rents on unfit properties and, for a growing minority, true destitution.

The word “hotel” is a misnomer because of the baggage it brings along with it. What do you think of when you hear it? A luxury penthouse suite on Broadway in New York? A boutique B&B on the south coast? A corridor of rooms all hosting polished and suited conference guests, checking emails on their iPhones over muesli in the breakfast room?

With those images in mind, it’s understandable that British people feel irritated by the idea that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is spent on apparent luxury. Of course, it’s really not like that. To be a refugee trapped in hotel accommodation is a terrible experience that can destroy lives.

Earlier this year I spent some time reporting on the lives of Afghan refugees who, more than six months after being airlifted out of Kabul as it fell to the Taliban, were still living in hotels with no apparent end in sight. These were largely families who had supported the British effort in Afghanistan and were pro-progress, desperate to be relieved from the brutality and repression they knew would follow.

We had, as a state, promised them a future. Now they are trapped, whole families to small rooms, in “hotels” that operate more like prisons. Residents have no cooking facilities of their own, are served food at set times of the day and not to their personal tastes. They are unable to welcome visitors. Children have no areas for play. Despite having the right to work, lacking an address outside these hotel complexes makes securing that employment difficult.

Tensions are building in these environments. Drug and alcohol issues, depression and anxiety are growing. Residents who simply want to be self-sustaining – starting a new life with their family in an ordinary home rather than cramped into a room with only one double bed – are now becoming so affected by their experiences that they may be unable to work.

And yet, these are the lucky ones. The unlucky arrivals from other nations, primarily via small boat crossings, are stuffed into processing centres now forcibly overcrowded due to the political ineptitude of the home secretary herself. Braverman has been forced by parliament to defend herself and deny failing to act on legal advice warning her that more hotel bookings were needed to prevent overcrowding occurring – a situation that has led to the spread of contagious diseases including diphtheria.

The politics in the asylum row exists in the gap between what is actually happening to individuals and the understanding of what is happening. Braverman must know she is exploiting that ever-widening gulf.

Another example of this gap emerged after a debate over the numbers of Albanian migrants entering the UK through small boat crossings. Up to 2 per cent of young Albanian men are thought to have attempted to leave the country – a large number that causes concern.

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That fact is correct, but it also differs greatly from the latest figures on Albanians accepted for settling here in the UK. In fact, 86 per cent of Albanians granted leave to remain in the UK through our asylum system were not young men, but women of all ages who were also found be victims of trafficking and in need of immediate protection. Sadly, we hear too little of their stories and too much of those whose lives appear more robust, where our responsibility seems easier to shrug off.

Now Braverman intends to force child refugees to undergo a bone scan to demonstrate their true age. I doubt I am speaking only for myself when I say that I do not care whether a young person fleeing war, oppression, victimisation and desperate economic circumstances in search of a more stable life is 13, 16 or 19.

I do care that the process via which they enter, which assesses their rights and our responsibilities on arrival, works in an efficient, fair and humane way. Buying hotel rooms is efficient. The challenge of the Home Office and its ministers is to explain that efficiency, not avoid honesty because that situation is a difficult one to describe.

The Home Office long ago lost its basic principle of fairness in its dealings with migration. With Braverman at its helm, there is no chance of recovery. The inhumane consequences of her actions, however, may be the spark that finally ignites change.