Asylum seekers describe being dropped in London without accommodation or money

Asylum seekers have described how they were taken from a processing centre in Kent and left in central London without accommodation, appropriate clothing or money.

A young man from Afghanistan told The Guardian he was among a group of 11 people dropped on the street outside Victoria Station on Tuesday evening.

He told the paper he asked a bus driver, who had picked the group up from the overcrowded Manston immigration holding centre then dropped them off in the capital, where they should go.

“I thought there was going to be a hotel for us. He said: ‘Go anywhere you want to go, it’s not my responsibility,’” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous.

“I told the driver I don’t have any address or any relatives. He said: ‘I can’t do anything for you.’”

The man said he had told Home Office staff during an earlier interview that he had no relatives or acquaintances in the country.

“They asked me if I had any friends or family and I replied I had no one in England,” he said.

A second asylum seeker, also from Afghanistan and speaking on condition of anonymity, told the paper he was among a group of 15 people taken from Manston on a bus and dropped in central London on Saturday evening.

“I was shocked to be left without help. I was cold. I was hungry and I was wondering how to sort it out,” he said, adding that the group had planned to spend the night in Victoria coach station.

The 20-year-old ex-police officer, who worked with international forces in his home country before fleeing when his parents were killed by the Taliban in 2021, was later able to get a bystander to help him contact a friend whose floor he was able to sleep on.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary has taken urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston using all the legal powers available and sourcing alternative accommodation.

“The welfare of those in our care is of the utmost importance and asylum seekers are only released from Manston when they have assured us that they have accommodation to go to – to suggest otherwise is wrong and misleading.”

The Home Secretary toured immigration centres on Thursday while battling to grip the migrant crisis amid threats of legal action, sexual assault allegations at a hotel housing asylum seekers and international criticism of her use of language.

Suella Braverman, who was reinstated to her ministerial post just over a week ago, met Border Force teams in Dover to discuss Channel crossings operations before visiting the scandal-hit Manston processing centre to hear updates from staff.

She has come under mounting political pressure over the illegal conditions at the site near Ramsgate, where at one point as many as 4,000 people were being detained for weeks in a site intended to hold 1,600 for a matter of days.

Downing Street said the number has since reduced to 2,700, after more than 1,000 were moved in the last few days, and that the Prime Minister was receiving twice daily updates on the situation.

The Home Secretary shied away from the media as she visited Dover’s Western Jet Foil site – the scene of a petrol bomb attack on Sunday – amid concerns of rising far-right activity fuelled by the failure to control the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said it was “shocked but not surprised” by revelations the petrol bomber was motivated by hatred of Muslims.

“Far-right extremism in the UK presents a clear and present danger to our country,” MCB said in a statement.

“It prospers thanks to a prevailing narrative that normalises hostility to certain minorities, particularly Muslims, asylum seekers and refugees and allows disinformation to fester.

“In the last few days, divisive ideologues, right-wing media commentators and certain politicians have called us to focus less on the far-right threat.

“They must be held to account, while more needs to be done to combat the rise of far-right extremism, which is currently growing at an exponential rate.”

The group noted Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes said earlier this year that 41% of counter-terrorism arrests in 2021 were of far-right suspects.

MCB said: “Successive home secretaries have also failed to grasp the extent of the extreme far-right problem.

“Our Government must rectify its own policy agenda on migrants which has only further marginalised migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.”