Windrush: 164 may have been wrongly held or kicked out
AT least 164 members of the windrush generation may have been wrongly detained or booted out of Britain, the Home Secretary has admitted.
Sajid Javid revealed the shocking figure after a trawl of 11,800 Home Office records on people mistakenly locked up or deported to the Caribbean since 2002.
Mr Javid said the appalling treatment of those who came from the west Indies between 1948 and 1973 to help rebuild post-war Britain was ‘completely unacceptable’.
All of the victims, aged 45 and over, will be offered the opportunity to stay in the UK and given compensation potentially totalling millions.
The review, published yesterday, gives the clearest indication yet of the scale of the scandal, which led to Amber Rudd’s resignation as home secretary in April.
Mr Javid issued a grovelling apology to 18 windrush citizens who were wrongfully removed or detained. Of these, six cases were before May 2010 – when Labour was in power.
Mr Javid said they were ‘most likely to have suffered detriment because their right to be in the UK was not recognised.’ eleven were kicked out after being served with enforcement papers and seven locked up for long periods before being allowed to stay – including Anthony Bryan, 61, and Paulette wilson, 62, who arrived in the 1960s with their parents.
A further 72 people were detained for up to 24 hours at the border by immigration officials as they arrived in the UK but were allowed to enter. And another 74 who had been here lawfully for decades may have been forced to leave after being declared illegal immigrants.
This is because they had spent more than two years out of Britain, losing their right to remain.
Mr Javid said: ‘ The experiences faced by some members of the windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the past.
‘I would like to personally apologise to those identified in our review and am committed to providing them with the support and compensation they deserve. we must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again.’
He also said the review had exposed ‘problems which have happened over many years, under multiple governments’.
Ministers faced a furious backlash over the treatment of those who came from the Commonwealth before 1973. Despite having an automatic right to stay in Britain, many never applied for passports or were issued with formal paperwork – meaning they could not prove they were eligible to be here. Changes to immigration rules in 2014, dubbed the ‘ hostile environment’ strategy, meant some windrush citizens have not been able to rent properties, work, or access nHS treatment.
Ministers have pledged they and their children would be fast-tracked to UK citizenship and provided a hardship fund for losses suffered.
windrush arrival Mr Bryan, of edmonton, north London, said: ‘The apology is all well and good but for me personally I’m still going through the windrush scandal.’ He said he needed urgent help after accruing significant debts while being unable to work as a painter and decorator for nearly three years because of the scandal.
Labour MP David Lammy, whose parents were windrush arrivals, added: ‘The apology is crocodile tears and an insult to people still not given a hardship fund, left jobless, homeless and unable to afford food.’
Yvette Cooper, Labour chairman of the Commons’ home affairs select committee, welcomed Mr Javid’s apology to the 18 but said all the others affected needed similar support.
‘The treatment is unacceptable’