In an exclusive interview, the contractor described the chaos he sees within the system as "terrifying" because undocumented people are persistently absconding from hotels.

He spoke to us because he is deeply concerned about the ongoing lack of monitoring at a time when the government has promised to tighten the asylum system.

The man, who we are not naming, works across multiple asylum hotels in one region of England.

"When someone gets to about a week away from the hotel, they're processed as an absconder," he said.

"Nothing really happens there. They get marked as 'left the hotel' and a notification is sent to the Home Office.

"It's at least weekly. Most of the time it can be daily."

The government moved last month to reset its immigration policy by promising to toughen the process for asylum seekers.

The latest figures up to September this year show 36,272 asylum seekers living in hotels.

Overall 110,000 people claimed asylum in the UK between September 2024 and September 2025 - higher than the previous recorded peak of 103,000 in 2002.

The hotel contractor also described to Sky News what he says happens when a resident's claim for asylum is rejected.

"They get given a date that they need to move out by," he said.

"You would expect immigration enforcement to go to the hotel to pick these people up. You would expect them to not even be told that they failed their asylum claim.

"You would expect them to just be collected from the hotel… that doesn't happen."

He told us that some residents just walk out of the door with no further checks or assistance.

"It must be terrifying for these people as well… 'what do I do now? I don't have an address'.

"So what do they do? How do they survive?

"Do they then get forced… to go into an underground world?

"They're just completely invisible within society.

"For those people to freely be allowed, undetected and unchecked, on the streets of this country is terrifying."

His account from within the system contrasts with the government's promises to restore control over the asylum process.

In response to the interview, a Home Office spokesperson said: "This government will end the use of hotels and have introduced major reforms to the asylum system, to scale up removals of people with no right to be here and address the factors drawing illegal migrants to the UK in the first place.

"Nearly 50,000 people with no right to be in our country have been removed and enforcement arrests to tackle illegal working are at the highest level in recent history.

"A dedicated team in the Home Office works with police, across government and commercial companies to trace absconders. Failure to return to a hotel can also lead to asylum claims and support being withdrawn."

At a community kitchen in Greater Manchester, organisers told us they regularly see people who are living under the radar - surviving with "cash in hand" jobs.

Volunteer Shabana Yunas helps many hungry and desperate people. She also feels the tension it causes in her community.

"People don't know who they are and I understand a lot of people are afraid… but if there's those things in place where we can monitor who is around, then everybody can feel a lot safer.

"If people are coming into the UK and we don't know who they are and they're just disappearing, crime rates are going to go up, slavery is going to go higher, child exploitation is going to be more exposed.

"They are too afraid to go to the authorities because they are scared of being deported to a country where their lives could be at risk.

"It's getting worse, it is dangerous and we do need to do something about this where we can support people."

Another volunteer at the kitchen is Khalid.

He arrived in the UK in 2015 having travelled from Ethiopia - he hid on a lorry to get into England.

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He has applied for asylum and been rejected four times.

He has recently submitted another application and told us political violence at home meant he could not return.

Crucially, he knows plenty of people living off-grid.

"Yeah, they don't care about what the government thinks, because they already destroyed their life," he told us.

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Although Khalid now has somewhere to stay, he has previously considered turning to crime to give himself the stability of life in prison.

"I was in depression. I was like, I wanna do some criminal and go jail, to stay in a prison.

"Once upon a time, I'd prefer that way."

Khalid is now volunteering to give his life more purpose as he waits for another decision from the Home Office.

He says he doesn't blame people who think he should be deported back to Ethiopia.

When asked if he should have been, he said: "That is up to Home Office, like up to government."

Stopping small boats, clearing backlogs, closing hotels, enforcing the rules and restoring faith in the system are all priorities for the Home Office - solving it all is one of the defining challenges for the Starmer government.

Tyler Robinson, 22, from Utah, is charged with aggravated murder in relation to the shooting of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem.

Video of the incident showed Kirk, 31, and a staunch ally of Donald Trump, reaching up with his right hand after a gunshot was heard as blood came out from the left side of his neck. He died shortly after.

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.

On Wednesday's appearance at Fourth District Court in Provo, Utah, Robinson arrived in court with restraints on his wrists and ankles and wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks.

Read more: What we can learn about suspect from charging document

According to the Associated Press, he smiled at family members sitting in the front row of the courtroom, where his mother teared up and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

He made previous court appearances via video or audio feed from jail.

The shooting happened during Kirk's "prove me wrong" series, which saw the father of two visit campuses and debate contentious subjects; in this case, he was discussing mass shootings.

Prosecutors say the bullet which struck Kirk's neck "passed closely to several other individuals", including the person questioning him as part of the event.

A charging document about Robinson from September includes incriminating texts sent between the alleged shooter and his roommate after Kirk's death.

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Judge Tony Graf also heard arguments on Wednesday about whether cameras and media should be allowed in the courtroom, with Robinson's lawyers and the Utah County Sheriff's Office asking for them to be banned.

Mr Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, has called for full transparency and said "we deserve to have cameras in there".

The judge has already made allowances to protect Robinson's presumption of innocence before a trial, agreeing that the case has drawn "extraordinary" public attention.

The Donbas - an industrial and coal-mining area primarily made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions - has become one of the key sticking points in the US-proposed peace plan.

The first draft of the plan, widely leaked last month, stipulated that Ukraine must withdraw from areas of the Donbas it currently controls, thought to be a minority portion, as a condition for peace.

Ukraine considered that point "unacceptable", and Mr Zelenskyy has spent the last few weeks drafting a response to the plan that removed "obvious anti-Ukraine points".

After a series of meetings with Ukraine's European allies, including a trip to London to meet Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, Zelenskyy said on Thursday that he'd sent Washington a revised peace plan, whittled down to just 20 points.

The new US proposal envisions Ukraine withdrawing from its territory in the Donbas without the Russians advancing, creating a neutral zone.

But Zelenskyy poured cold water on the plans as he briefed journalists in Kyiv.

"Who will govern this territory, which they are calling a 'free economic zone' or a 'demilitarised zone' - they don't know," he said.

"If one side's troops have to retreat and the other side stays where they are, then what will hold back these other troops, the Russians? Or what will stop them disguising themselves as civilians and taking over this free economic zone? This is all very serious.

"It's not a fact that Ukraine would agree to it, but if you are talking about a compromise then it has to be a fair compromise."

Sky News military analyst Michael Clarke gave an ominous assessment of the proposal, saying it left "no physical solution" to resolve the problem of future attacks.

He said: "If Ukraine gives up the fortress cities in the Donbas, the only security they can have is by being heavily armed and being backed by their allies in some way."

"The only thing that would stop Russia is deterrence: the knowledge that either the European forces were sitting in Ukraine ready to fight for them, which is hard to imagine at the moment, and even harder to imagine that they are backed up by American forces."

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Service Institute, was similarly sceptical.

"The general view is that the Russians will be too tempted to... try and come back for more," he told Sky News.

He added that "some kind of temporary ceasefire" might work, but it would require "the Europeans to demonstrate they can put their forces where their mouth is in terms of a reassurance force".

Amid this backdrop there was a meeting today of the coalition of the willing - the 34-strong bloc of nations pledged to support Ukraine against Russian aggression, of which Britain is a part.

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There was agreement to continue to fund military support, "progress on mobilising frozen Russian sovereign assets", and an update from Zelenskyy on Russia's continued bombardment of his country, according to Downing Street.

Afterwards, Zelenskyy said the bloc was working to ensure any peace deal contains "serious components of European deterrence".

He added: "It is important that the United States is with us and supports these efforts. No one is interested in a third Russian invasion."

He also addressed growing pressure from the US for an election in Ukraine, saying "there must be a ceasefire" before the country can go to the polls.

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Zelenskyy's term expired last year, but wartime elections are forbidden by law in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the tone tonight from the White House was one of impatience, with Trump's team saying he wouldn't attend further meetings until there's a real chance of signing a peace deal.

"The president is extremely frustrated with both sides of this war, and he is sick of meetings just for the sake of meeting," said White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

Changing names, switching flags, and vanishing from tracking systems.

That all came to an end this week, when American coast guard teams descending from helicopters with guns drawn stormed the ship, named Skipper.

A US official said the helicopters that took the teams to the tanker came from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford.

The sanctioned tanker

Over the past two years, Skipper has been tracked to countries under US sanctions including Iran.

TankerTrackers.com, which monitors crude oil shipments, estimates Skipper has transported nearly 13 million barrels of Iranian and Venezuelan oil since 2021.

And in 2022, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed Skipper, then known as Adisa, on its sanctions list.

But that did not stop the ship's activities.

In mid-November 2025, it was pictured at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela, where it was loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil.

It left Jose Oil Export Terminal between 4 and 5 December, according to TankerTrackers.com.

And on 6 or 7 December, Skipper did a ship-to-ship transfer with another tanker in the Caribbean, the Neptune 6.

Ship-to-ship transfers allow sanctioned vessels to obscure where oil shipments have come from.

The transfer with Neptune 6 took place while Skipper's tracking system, known as AIS, was turned off.

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Dimitris Ampatzidis, senior risk and compliance manager at Kpler, told Sky News: "Vessels, when they are trying to hide the origin of the cargo or a port call or any operation that they are taking, they can just switch off the AIS."

Matt Smith, head analyst US at Kpler, said they believe the ship's destination was Cuba.

Around five days after leaving the Venezuelan port, it was seized around 70 miles off the coast.

Moving in the shadows

Skipper has tried to go unnoticed by using a method called 'spoofing'.

This is where a ship transmits a false location to hide its real movements.

"When we're talking about spoofing, we're talking about when the vessel manipulates the AIS data in order to present that she's in a specific region," Mr Ampatzidis explained.

"So you declare false AIS data and everyone else in the region, they are not aware about your real location, they are only aware of the false location that you are transmitted."

When it was intercepted by the US, it was sharing a different location more than 400 miles away from its actual position.

Skipper was manipulating its tracking signals to falsely place itself in Guyanese waters and fraudulently flying the flag of Guyana.

"We have really real concerns about the spoofing events," Mr Ampatzidis told Sky News.

"It's about the safety on the seas. As a shipping industry, we have inserted the AIS data, the AIS technology, this GPS tracking technology, more than a decade back, in order to ensure that vessels and crew on board on these vessels are safe when they're travelling."

Dozens of sanctioned tankers 'operating off Venezuela'

Skipper is not the only sanctioned ship off the coast of Venezuela.

According to analysis by Windward, 30 sanctioned tankers were operating in Venezuelan ports and waters as of 11 December.

The tanker seizure is a highly unusual move from the US government and is part of the Trump administration's increasing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

In recent months, the largest US military presence in the region in decades has built up, and a series of deadly strikes has been launched on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

In the past, Mr Ampatzidis explained, actions like sanctions have had a limited effect on illegally operating tankers.

But the seizure of Skipper will send a signal to other dark fleet ships.

"From today, they will know that if they are doing spoofing, if they are doing dark activities in closer regions of the US, they will be in the spotlight and they will be the key targets from the US Navy."

The Data X Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

Underlining the role civilians would have to play in a major conflict, Al Carns said armies, navies and air forces respond to crises but "societies, industries and economies win wars".

He said: "The shadow of war is knocking on Europe's door once more. That's the reality. We've got to be prepared to deter it."

The comments came after Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, told allies on Thursday that Europe must ready itself for a confrontation with Russia on the kind of scale "our grandparents and great-grandparents endured" - a reference to the First and Second World Wars.

In an indication of the threat, Britain revealed on Friday that the level of hostile intelligence activity - such as spying, hacking and physical threats - against its armed forces and the Ministry of Defence has jumped by more than 50% over the past year.

Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are suspected of being the main culprits.

The government is launching a new defence counter-intelligence unit to bolster its ability to detect and disrupt intelligence operations by hostile states.

It has also moved to enhance the Ministry of Defence's spying capabilities by combining the various military intelligence branches across the army, navy and air force, as well as Defence Intelligence, into a new organisation called the Military Intelligence Services.

The "MI" initials are the same as in MI5 and MI6 - the UK's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.

Mr Carns, a former special forces colonel, visited RAF Wyton, a top-secret military spy base in Cambridgeshire, with a second defence minister, Louise Sandher-Jones, as well as a group of journalists to announce the organisational changes.

But improving the readiness of the professional armed forces is only part of any country's preparedness for potential conflict.

With France warning its people they may need to lose their children fighting a war with Russia, Sky News asked Mr Carns whether he thought more needed to be done to inform the British public about the sacrifices they might be required to make in a war.

The minister said: "There's a whole load of work going on now between us [Ministry of Defence], the Cabinet Office, and the whole of society approach, and what conflict means, and what everybody's role in society means if we were to go to war and the build up to war."

He continued: "Collectively, everybody - what is their role if we get caught in an existential crisis, and what do they need to be aware they need to do and what they can't do, and how do we mobilise the nation to support a military endeavour?

"Not just about deploying the military, but actually about protecting every inch of our own territory. That work is ongoing now, it's rapidly developing. We've got to move as fast as we can to make sure that's shored up."

The UK used to have a comprehensive plan for the transition from peace to war.

Developed over decades, the Government War Book had instructions for every part of society, from the army and the police to schools, hospitals and even art galleries.

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However, this huge body of preparedness - which was expensive to maintain - was quietly shelved following the end of the Cold War.

Mr Carns's comments indicate that some kind of modern version of the doctrine could make a comeback.

Communicating the changing reality of the security situation to the public is also seen as key.

The armed forces minister said many people in the UK do not see, hear or feel the dangers even as Russia's war in Ukraine rages, impacting the cost of fuel.

"We've got to bring that home to make sure people understand, not to scare them, but to be realistic and understand where those threats are emanating from, and why defence and a whole society approach is so important," he said.

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Sky News' The Wargame podcast explores what might happen if Russia attacked the UK and how all of society would be affected.