Javid chosen as new UK home minister

BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday appointed the first ethnic-minority politician to the key post of home secretary, as the government struggled to contain a scandal over the mistreatment of long-term residents from the Caribbean.

Sajid Javid replaces Amber Rudd, who resigned late Sunday, saying she had “inadvertently” misled lawmakers about whether the government had deportation targets.

The Windrush immigration scandal has dominated headlines in Britain for days and sparked intense criticism of the Conservative government’s tough policies.

The furor began when the Guardian newspaper reported that some people who came to the UK from the Caribbean in the decades after World War II had recently been refused medical care in Britain or threatened with deportation because they could not produce paperwork proving their right to reside in the country.

Immigration is a divisive issue in Britain, with cutting the inflow of migrants a major factor for many voters who in 2016 backed leaving the European Union. The government has an oft-stated but longunmet goal of reducing net immigration below 100,000 people a year, less than half the current level. Opponents say the government should drop that target.

May is facing calls to take responsibility for the tough immigration policies when she was home secretary in 2012.

Those affected belong to the “Windrush generation,” named for the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought Caribbean immigrants to Britain, which was seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

They and subsequent Caribbean migrants came from British colonies or ex-colonies and had an automatic right to settle in the UK. But some have been ensnared by tough new laws to make UK a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants.