On the ground in the refugee and asylum capital of Britain

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, we head to the asylum and refugee capital of the UK.

0:17I've called a lot of politicians in my 20 years as a journalist, and it's fair to say they're not always happy to hear from me. Still, I was pretty surprised at the response I got when I rang the leader of Crawley Borough Council in the south of England a few months ago. Hello. Oh, hi, is that Michael? Speaking. Yeah, hi, it's Helen Pidd here. I'm a journalist from The Guardian. This is Michael Jones, the Labour leader of the council. I wanted to talk to you about.

0:48I'd rather not comment on it, to be honest. You don't know what it is, though. It's about the latest immigration figures that have come out today from central government, the quarterly figures. I don't want to make any comment, OK? Why not? How come? Crawley is a town of about 120 ,000 people near Gatwick Airport. And according to Home Office statistics, relative to its local population, it has the highest number of asylum seekers and supported refugees of anywhere in the UK. And they're mostly living in hotels. For all the talk about immigration in the UK, the complaints that migrants put unfair pressure on communities.

1:28I just wanted to know what it looked like from Crawley. But he clearly didn't want to talk, and he wasn't the only one. Crawley's MP, also Labour, said no. Thank you for the offer, Peter Lam wrote in an email, but there is no way of dealing with this topic with sufficient nuance to avoid it increasing levels of far-right activity. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at their reticence. immigration has become a very sensitive topic in the Labour Party since last year's general election. They were elected on a pledge to shut the migrant hotels by 2029. But after two summers of angry protests, including in Crawley, and with the far right on the rise, Keir Starmer wants to move quicker.

2:15But until then, towns all around the country are left to manage these new arrivals, balancing their needs with the demands of local residents. And it isn't easy. From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, fear and loathing in West Sussex.

2:36It is a very rainy Tuesday at the start of September and we are in Crawley Town Centre. A few days after the council leader hangs up on me, I take the train to Crawley with my producer, Eleanor. So we're going into County Mall. Mal? Mall? I don't know. Going into County Mall, largely because it's raining and we don't want to get wet. And we'll see if anybody's willing to talk to us. What about these two chaps? Now, in many ways, Crawley is just an average British town. It sprung up after the Second World War as a so-called new town designed to serve Gatwick Airport. There's lots of brutalist concrete buildings and roundabouts and a high street filled with the usual suspects.

3:15suspects. Superdrug, Costa Coffee, JD Sports, a baffling number of vape shops.

3:28But there's one thing that sets Crawley apart. Almost 1 ,400 migrants are living in three local hotels. Hotels that used to be used for holidaymakers taking early flights, or business people attending conferences. Just under a thousand are Afghans who came to the UK on legal schemes because of their work for the British government and army. In Crawley, most of the Afghans arrived secretly earlier this year after a Ministry of Defence data leak put their lives in danger.

4:00We're just walking towards the entrance of an enormous hotel in central Crawley. It's quite a modern building. Producer Eleanor and I head to the hotel where many of the Afghans who came on the secret scheme are living. It's huge. And there are all kinds of people milling about outside. There's women in shallower kameez with headscarves, guys in tracksuits. We're going to try and talk to a few of the people who are currently living in this hotel to try and find out what life is like for them in there. One guy pushing a buggy with his wife in tow seems happy to chat to me. Excuse me. Hiya, do you speak English?

4:37Yes, I do. Yeah, we're journalists from The Guardian. I'm at the same time on another phone call. Oh, right. Can you hold? Yes. Suddenly, a car pulls up alongside us. Hello. Yeah. We're journalists from The Guardian. We're making a podcast about crawling. No, is this not public property here? The woman looks rattled. She clearly doesn't want us to be here. She starts giving instructions to the guy in the car next to her. He's an Afghan interpreter. Can you let him know to go into the hotel? Yeah, I can absolutely do. He can torture us if he wants to. No, but I have a free wish. If you want to speak to the newspaper, then that's fine, but I'm trying to protect you.

5:20Thank you so much. OK? That's entirely up to you. Yeah, but I know. Is that all right? Yeah. Thank you so much, but you cannot... Yeah, that was weird. No, but you cannot direct me to... The car drives off, and we're alone now, but it's clear the guy is a little uneasy as I start asking questions and so Eleanor and I leave. We start to walk away from the hotel but as we do, we notice we're being followed. And yeah, the security guards have been, oh, there's lots of people following us. The whole thing feels very strange. And then we bump into a group of kids coming from the hotel. They're all boys and they look to be around the ages of 11 to 17.

6:00Do you speak English? Yeah. Yeah, you do, cool. One of them starts talking to me. He's clutching a workbook and tells me he's on his way to an English class. He has a really big, cheeky smile and pretty good English for someone who's only just arrived. How long have you been living here? For one month. Right. Living in the hotel? Yeah. And how is life in the hotel? Not bad. Not bad? Yeah. The boy tells me he's living in the hotel with his mum and siblings. His dad used to work for the British government, the boy says, which is why they're here. And 14 years ago, my dad has died, has died. Oh, no.

6:37Believe me. Oh, right. Because of his job. Really? He was a persecutor. Right, good words. Yeah. So when you were three, you were very little. I don't remember my father. I grew without my father. His dad died some years ago, but the family was still in danger, he says. Yeah. Why did your family have to leave Afghanistan? Because the Taliban want to kill us. Really? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. That's horrible. I ask him if he wants to return to Afghanistan, and he says no. You want this to be your home? Yeah, yeah. Why? Because I don't like Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a bad situation now. Yeah. Yeah.

7:18No money, no money, no work, no lesson, no future. Really? Yeah. And what do you want to do in your future? I want to become a big businessman. Really? Yeah. What kind of business? Business has lots of money. The gaggle of kids head off to their English class, clearly excited about coming across me and my microphone. Shall we go? Yeah. All right, well, thanks for talking to us all first.

7:54The hotel is surrounded by tightly packed terrace streets. I approach a man coming out of a house very nearby. He's probably in his mid to late 40s. Do you live around here? Yeah. Yeah, we're journalists from The Guardian. All right. We're doing a story about asylum seekers and refugees in Crawley. Why do you... Well, the hotel's full of them. And how close to the hotel do you live? I'd say 100 metres. Right. And when did asylum seekers start being housed in the hotel? About two years ago. Yeah. And what do you make of the fact that that's what the hotel's being used for now?

8:30That's a difficult question because without being like this, I'm not racist or anything like that, but it's... How can I put it? The UK's just messed up with it, I think, really. I'm just old-fashioned UK resident, and I wish it would all stay old-fashioned, like, you know, sort of... Just the Brits. And so British for you doesn't mean a multicultural society then, does it not? No. What does British mean for you?

9:05White British. Just white British.

9:13It just feels like foreign countries to me, in my own country that I used to live in and it's full pushed out.

9:23Goodness. There was a lot going unsaid in those pauses, wasn't there?

9:41I come away pretty shocked that someone would talk so openly about wanting Britain to be a white country especially because Crawley is such a diverse place there's a long history of immigration here from places like India, Pakistan, Uganda the Chagos Islands and more recently from Central and Eastern Europe. Almost 30 % of the local population were not born in England. Many of the others are second or third generation immigrants, like this man I meet in the town square. Are you from Crawley? Yeah. Yeah, all right. He tells me he's 31. He's lived in Crawley for 10 years and he's a forklift truck driver but is currently unemployed.

10:20Right. And there's at least three hotels in the Crawley area that are housing asylum seekers. there's been protests outside at least one recently i wonder what do you make of that i don't think they should be housed in hotels i think the hotels are there for for a reason they're for tourists they're not for immigrants um they're gonna house them they need to find a better solution what what could that solution be uh well i've heard today they're talking about industrial units there's plenty of them popping up and would you be okay with that it wouldn't Bother me. Right. They're going to house them.

10:56They're going to house them. Right. At some point, they're going to move them around. It don't matter where they put them. I'm a third-generation immigrant. Oh, yeah? My family are from Italy, so they come over during the war. So I understand immigration is a necessary thing. Do you think that the number of asylum seekers of refugees puts pressure on local services or not? 100%. 100%. As it is now, you've got houses being sprung up all over the place, but there's not doctors that are going with that. Even things like supermarkets. They're few and far between. Crawley's surroundings are very villagey and they're not made to withstand that amount of people.

11:30There's a limited amount of jobs, there's a limited amount of everything and the more people you move into an area, the more strain it puts on that no matter where they're from. He clearly thinks Crawley can't cope with the volume of new arrivals. But even though Crawley does proportionally have more asylum seekers and supported refugees than anywhere else in the UK, they still only make up 1.43 % of the local population. I get talking to a woman sitting outside a cafe in the main square. She doesn't want us to say where she's from, but she came to Crawley 12 years ago to work and now has a job in a local shop.

12:06What's it like as a place to live? Especially in the last seven, eight years since too many people coming around, which is causing a lot of differences in a society. Too many different people, what do you mean? So many of my friends, we are talking about what is going on. And even just my neighbourhood has changed because I had to move out from my place

12:43because they were giving me a section 21. Oh, really? Because my landlord giving houses away to accommodate those people who are in need. What, you mean asylum seekers? Yeah, right. Yeah. The woman gets out her phone to show us a video. It's a group of people who, frankly, have dark skin and a lot of luggage. Being dropped off outside what she says is her old house. She says she and her housemates have been evicted because her landlord can make more money by renting it out to asylum seekers, presumably through a Home Office contractor. And how, are you sure that they're asylum seekers? Yeah. How do you know?

13:30Just the look of them. Sorry.

13:48Over the past few months, I've really tried to get to the bottom of what impact these new arrivals are actually having on local services. One Crawley High School told me that this year they've enrolled 27 students from overseas, including 19 from Afghanistan. They originally revealed these numbers under pressure from Reform UK. But the headteacher was at pains to stress to me that they were, quote, never forced to take any students. We are very happy to support their education for as long as they're part of our community, he said. But everyone else, GP surgeries, other schools, they ignored us.

14:25And as for groups in Crawley directly working with refugees and asylum seekers, none would go on the record. Things were just too sensitive now, they said. But there was one exception, one of the most upbeat and positive people I've ever met. Hi, my name's Steve Alliston. I'm one of the pastors here at Crawley Community Church. Steve's not the dog collar type. He's wearing a retro tracksuit top, turned up jeans and trainers. He gives us a tour, and it's not your average church either. We have a big old school building in the middle of town that we use as a community centre, with all kinds of groups that come in, serving asylum seekers and refugees.

15:01It's a part of that. Anyone can come to church, that's fine. Here in the centre, we've said we're here to help anyone that has a need. And certainly on certain days, you'll find up and down our corridors, there's a whole crowd of people from all kinds of backgrounds. The vast majority of them will be Muslim background. We're really happy to befriend them, help them, try and support them, teas, coffees, food while they're waiting. I tell Steve about the man we've just met near the hotel. He did say he wanted the country back. And I said, well, back like what? What does that mean? He wanted it to be British.

15:28And I said, well, what does British mean to you? and eventually she said white, white British. I feel like it's something that we wouldn't have heard maybe somebody saying to a reporter who's identified themselves a year ago. Yeah, those kinds of opinions, you didn't hear them really spoken in that way. Even a year ago, last summer, when some of the protesting riots were happening outside of hotels, there was a build-up to an organised so-called protest here at one of the hotels that houses asylum seekers. I think there was one guy that came with his flag and there were hundreds of people outside the hotel that were there in support of asylum seekers from all kinds of backgrounds.

16:10And so that was remarkable. I think if that were to happen again now here, I'm not sure you would have the same dynamic perhaps. It seems to have shifted and accelerated. He thinks government policy has contributed to some of the ill feeling. If you live in those areas, work in those areas, your kids play in those areas, I can understand. there can be lack of understanding there can be fear these things are just real it's reality isn't it so it is noticeable and perhaps it's partly to do with the way that our policy works here in the UK and that asylum seekers are not generally allowed to work so they are hanging around either in town centres or around the hotels or in the parks I think that can be problematic and of course some of them will get into trouble and as you know any percentage of a population if they're hanging around all day with nothing to do, bored, young men will, you know, there'll be a percentage from amongst them.

17:01So we, of course, we recognise the problem. My belief is, and I think generally our observation is that the kind of language, the rhetoric around stop the boats and the sort of tides of refugees and, you know, being overwhelmed and want our country back. The reality on the ground is most people don't know, haven't met, don't come across a refugee unless you happen to live by one of the hotels. Have you noticed an uptick in incidents where they're being made to feel unwelcome or they're being abused? Yes, and it has changed over the last year. I mean, they're aware, they see the news, they watch the news, they're online.

17:38I think around the time of what looked like it was going to be a riot last summer, you know, as we were outside the hotel, they were looking out the windows. Some of them afraid for their lives when they'd seen on the news, you know, Hotels being set on fire and gangs charging lines of police, none of that happened here. We're very grateful for that. But of course, they're certainly aware of a change in dynamic. Some of them are getting abused in the streets or people shout things at them. Lots of stuff, isn't it? Yeah, just go home, that kind of stuff. Coming up, we talk to one of the Afghans living in a crawly hotel and finally get some answers.

18:31A few weeks later, I managed to arrange an interview with one of the Afghan men who's living in the big hotel in Crawley. We speak to him on the phone from his room. He doesn't want us to use his real name, so we're calling him Jamal. He arrived in the UK in May on the secret scheme after his details were leaked. He tells me he worked as an interpreter for the British Army from 2010 to 2012, and he's been trying to come to the UK for safety pretty much ever since. And where did you work on the front line? In Kandahar and also in the Gate of Hill in Helmand province. The British call the Helmand province the Gate of Hill because of the danger, the ambushes, the IEDs.

19:14Right. So you must have been in a lot of danger then doing that job. Jamal tells me that years before Kabul fell in 2021, he'd written to the British authorities and told them he feared for his life. They were like, no, you are fine. It's fine. Nothing will happen. And then later I got targeted by the Taliban in the capital city of Afghanistan. You got targeted how? What happened? Yeah, I was just on my way to my uncle's home. a motorbike cam and then they just took the pistol out from his his pocket yeah and then point my forehead and then when the he pointed my forehead i just slapped the pistol and then like start firing so i got three four bullets on in my hand that i still have broken finger in in hand here yeah your little finger doesn't look quite right so yeah you they held a gun to your head and then to protect yourself you were shot through the hand.

20:16I didn't just do like this, I slapped the pistol because I knew that you are going to die so I tried my best to save my life but still I got shot here on the shoulder and then he shot the whole magazine.

20:42Despite saying his life was in danger, Jamal was only allowed into Britain earlier this year after his details had been leaked. So you've been living in the hotel in Crawley since May. What's it like in there? It's like, I don't know. The first thing, when I was coming out from Afghanistan, I thought someone will come and they will assist us. they will ask us, what do you need? What do you want to be done? Then I was like, I will say that please, before tea or coffee, take me to the hospital. I've lost my mental health. Right. What have you got post-traumatic stress disorder? Like so many things.

21:26Destroyed my mental health. Many hotels around the country have been targeted by so-called civilian journalists, YouTubers who ambush residents, often mocking them and suggesting they're living a life of luxury. Excuse me, this is a private property. I want to go back here. Why not? Who pays for it then? Who funds it? It's not publicly. Is it not a government hotel? No. No? No. You're lying. They've been outside Jamal's hotel too, with their selfie sticks and live streams. YouTubers or many people are visiting the Afghans in their hotels. And I'm like when I'm watching them and they are asking them why you come to my country and there is no one to ask them why you came to my country.

22:09And you you told us that we bring you democracy and then we fight with Taliban and then you give them back the system, the country, the weapons like they just leave everything there like to Taliban. So the Taliban killed so many of us. And those YouTubers who are asking those Afghans why you come to my country, why they are not thinking of those sacrifices that they have already gave for the British people. And also, if they're saying that you have a luxury life, we are begging the government to take us out from the hotels. Why? Why do you want to leave the hotel? Because this is not a home. We can't make food for ourselves.