Meanings
- UKuncountablegovernmentAn 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 511 more example
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 - uncountableUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hostile, environment.
Cite this entry
hostile environment. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hostile%20environment
“hostile environment.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hostile%20environment. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hostile environment,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hostile%20environment.
Source: hostile environment on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.