Word.ws English Dictionary

hostile environment

hostile environment noun: an immigration policy in which service providers such as doctors, landlords and banks must perform ID checks to verify that potential clients have legal right to remain.

Noun

hostile environment (uncountable)

  1. (UK) An immigration policy in which service providers such as doctors, landlords and banks must perform ID checks to verify that potential clients have legal right to remain.
    • As Liberty (2018: 5) have argued: 'The hostile environment is a sprawling web of immigration controls embedded in the heart of our public services and communities.'2020 July 8, Rees, James, Pomati, Marco, Social Policy Review 32: Analysis and Debate in Social Policy, 2020, Policy Press, →ISBN, page 51
    • Among the targets of the hostile environment policy (it was later used euphemised as the 'compliant environment' policy) were those who became, through no fault of their own, entangled in what became known as the Windrush scandal.2024 January 18, Paul Warmington, Permanent Racism: Race, Class and the Myth of Postracial Britain, Policy Press, →ISBN, page 130
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hostile, environment.

Questions about hostile environment

What does hostile environment mean?
Hostile environment means an immigration policy in which service providers such as doctors, landlords and banks must perform ID checks to verify that potential clients have legal right to remain.
What part of speech is hostile environment?
Hostile environment is a noun.

Words near hostile environment in the dictionary

  1. hosticide
  2. hostie
  3. hosties
  4. hostile
  5. hostile architecture
  6. hostile environment
  7. hostile possession
  8. hostile possessions
  9. hostile takeover
  10. hostile takeovers
  11. hostile vehicle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hostile environment (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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