Windrush migrants were ‘easy targets’ to remove
‘‘If I was responsible for this disgrace, I would have resigned last week.’’
David Lammy, Labour MP
Confirmation that Britain’s Home Office handed down targets for voluntary deportations has led to claims that migrants in the Windrush generation became ‘‘easy targets’’ because of the shame associated with being asked to leave the United Kingdom.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd said yesterday she would issue no new targets for immigration teams, after it emerged that they did exist and were designed to encourage officials to remove people.
The measure was applied to the voluntary scheme, which offered payment to migrants in return for leaving and incentives to encourage them not to ignore letters asking them to co-operate.
At a home affairs select committee hearing on Thursday, Rudd said her department did not use targets to measure removals, but she was later forced to admit she was wrong before revealing that
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the targets would be scrapped altogether.
However, the existence of targets until at least last year has contributed to fears that the government’s so-called hostile environment policy disproportionately affected migrants such as those in the Windrush generation because of their desire to do the right thing.
Many were picked up because their employers suddenly demanded extra documentation after checks were tightened in 2014.
Lucy Moreton, the general secretary of the immigration workers’ union, said there was a ‘‘shift in attitude’’ in 2011-12 which meant Home Office officials were no longer allowed to have a conversation with migrants struggling to prove their status in order to prove how long they had been living in the UK.
She told a committee of MPs that many cases used to be resolved using ‘‘a level of discretion no longer permitted’’, including asking people to recall living through big events like strikes and water shortages.
Last week, Mosi Haynes, the son of a Windrush migrant whose status in the UK became complicated after the breakup of his marriage, said he had booked his own flight out of Britain because he was ‘‘too ashamed’’ to be deported.
MPs say they know of many others, but so far the Home Office has been unable to put a number on how many Windrush migrants may have left under their own steam without informing officials. They do not believe anyone has been deported forcibly.
David Lammy, the Labour MP who has led the charge on the issue, said yesterday that Windrush citizens were treated as ‘‘easy targets’’ and that Rudd ‘‘lied to Parliament’’ and ‘‘has completely lost control of her department’’. He added: ‘‘If I was responsible for this disgrace, I would have resigned last week.’’
The targets were revealed in a report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, published in December 2015.
It states: ‘‘For 2014-15 (10 full months) the Home Office set a target of 7200 Voluntary Departures, an average of 120 per week, with the weekly target rising to 160 by the end of March 2015.
‘‘For 2015-16, the annual target was raised to 12,000.’’
A No 10 Downing Street spokesman said that removal targets had been set by previous governments over a number of decades.
– Telegraph Group