midlandsgrimpeur
Regular
Not if you're referring to ones that "get put up in hotels" you're not
Exactly right. An economic migrant is by definition, a person who emigrates to another country for material gain and is not in any way related to the Refugee definition. The only people given publicly funded accommodation in the UK are Refugees seeking Asylum.
Also, the concept of 'illegal' economic migrants is kind of spurious. An economic migrant would have to have a visa to come and work here and therefore would be here legally. The only way that could really exist would be for someone to get here via a completely undocumented route (so no agencies knew they were in the UK) and then manage to find cash in hand work with an employer who was prepared to employ someone illegally. I suspect the numbers of such people in the UK are minimal, and again these people are not Asylum Seekers or connected to Refugee migration in any way.