PM May apologises over treatment of Windrush migrants
Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, has apologised to Caribbean countries over the treatment of the Windrush generation, after reports of residents being threatened with deportation overshadowed a London meeting of 53 Commonwealth nations.
Windrush migrants, whose parents were invited to Britain to fill labour gaps after the Second World War, have been caught up in a tightening of immigration rules overseen by Mrs May in 2012, when she was interior minister.
“I take this issue very seriously,” Mrs May told representatives from 12 Caribbean countries at Downing Street yesterday. “The home secretary apologised in the House of Commons yesterday for any anxiety caused. And I want to apologise to you today. We are genuinely sorry for any anxiety that has been caused.”
She assured the leaders and diplomats that there would be no deportations or detentions of Windrush migrants while the immigration process was being addressed.
“Those who arrived from the Caribbean before 1973 and lived here permanently without significant periods of time away in the past 30 years have the right to remain in the UK, as do the vast majority of longterm residents who arrived later,” Mrs May said.
“And I don’t want anybody to be in any doubt about their right to remain here in the United Kingdom.”
She said that her government was not “clamping down” on Commonwealth citizens, particularly those from the Caribbean. She also expressed her gratitude to Windrush migrants, saying that she valued the contribution they had made.
The term “Windrush generation” comes from the former troopship Empire Windrush, one of the first vessels to take Caribbean citizens to fill labour gaps in the UK in 1948.
Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica, responded by telling Mrs May that he hoped to see a swift implementation of her proposed solution.
Mr Holness said it was only right that those migrants who had contributed to Britain should be allowed to stay in the country as citizens.
Mrs May had initially turned down a request from 12 Caribbean countries for the matter to be discussed at this week’s Commonwealth summit.
But faced with a growing outcry that threatened to overshadow the biennial gathering of the alliance of the UK and its former colonies, Downing Street said on Monday that Mrs May would after all meet the leaders from Caribbean states to discuss the matter.
The about-turn came after a letter signed by 140 MPs demanded a change of heart.
On Monday afternoon, Home Secretary Amber Rudd confirmed she would set up a task force to ensure that those affected would receive a “swift response” when they approach the Home Office for help in getting the paperwork they need.
Ms Rudd said fees would be waived, and apologised for the ill treatment of some Windrush migrants.
Cabinet minister David Lidington said yesterday that the government knew of no cases where members of the Windrush generation had been deported because they lacked documentation.
He told the BBC that officials were checking records to make sure nothing had “gone appallingly wrong in that way”.
But Labour MP David Lammy, who had tabled the urgent question on the issue in Parliament on Monday, said on Twitter that he knew of a man who was set to be deported imminently.
On Monday, Mr Lammy called it a “day of national shame” and blamed the Home Office under Mrs May, which he said had created a “hostile environment” for immigrants.
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford told
The National that up to 57,000 of the 500,000 people who moved to the UK before the 1971 Immigration Act came into law could be at risk of being removed from the country.
That act enshrined the right for Commonwealth citizens to have indefinite leave to remain in Britain, but those who had come over before that date often did not have the paperwork to prove that they were legally allowed to live there.
Many of the residents have been told that they need evidence, including passports, to continue working or receiving health treatment despite living, working and paying tax in Britain for decades.
The dispute is an unwelcome distraction for Britain, which hopes to use the summit to bolster its bid for free trade deals around the world after the UK leaves the EU next year.