Plans to start moving migrants out of hotels and into military bases or even potentially disused ferries are expected to be announced by the government within weeks.
Ministers have already signalled that they want to end the use of hotels as asylum seeker accommodation.
Previous suggestions of using holiday camps and student halls are less likely to be brought into action.
It comes as Tory MPs prepare to mount a rebellion against Rishi Sunak’s illegal immigration bill next week.
A number of senior Tories and former ministers have signed an amendment that would carve out any role for the European Court of Human Rights from the UK process for handling illegal migration.
The change has been put forward by Boris Johnson’s former Political Secretary Danny Kruger and is being supported by a number of MPs including Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Sir John Redwood and Simon Clarke.
The prime minister’s legislation will be scrutinised by the Commons on Monday and Tuesday with newspapers reporting he will be meeting potential rebels in the coming days.
Government sources said an announcement on hotel accommodation is expected within weeks.
The news comes after plans to house asylum seekers at a Royal Air Force base in Lincolnshire were met with opposition from locals, politicians and historians.
About 1,500 asylum seekers could be housed at the now disused RAF Scampton.
The airfield, which closed last year, is the former home of The Red Arrows aerobatics display team and the Dambusters – the squadron that carried out one of the Second World War’s most famous air raids.
The proposal could see a £300m plan to turn the base into a heritage site scrapped.
The decision to house asylum seekers in army barracks during the pandemic was described as a “serious error of judgement” after a COVID outbreak.
Conditions at Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent and Penally Camp in Wales were “utterly unacceptable” and represented “serious failings on the part of the Home Office”, chief inspector David Bolt said in the April 2021 report.
Responding to Saturday’s announcement, Plaid Cymru Westminster leader and home affairs spokesperson, Liz Saville Roberts MP said the government had “learned nothing from their failures”.
“Inspectors described the Penally barracks in Pembrokeshire as ‘impoverished, run-down and unsuitable’.
“Penally was thankfully shut down and people were moved to more appropriate accommodation.
“Reports of plans to move asylum seekers to army bases within weeks shows yet again that this Tory government is driven by cruelty not policy outcomes.”
