The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
May sorry over Windrush row
DEPORTATION: Labour MP David Lammy hits out over ‘national disgrace’
Theresa May has apologised to Caribbean leaders over the treatment of members of the so-called Windrush generation who have been threatened with deportation after decades living in the UK.
At talks in No 10, the Prime Minister said she is “genuinely sorry” for the anxiety that had been caused and that she wanted to dispel the idea the Government is seeking to clamp down on citizens from the region.
But even as the meeting was taking place, Labour MP David Lammy disclosed that he had been contacted by a woman who came to Britain as part of the Windrush generation who said her son was facing deportation today.
Mr Lammy said Ruth Williams, who is in her seventies, had told him that her son Mozi Haynes, 35, was due to be removed from the country after two failed applications to remain.
“This is a national disgrace,” Mr Lammy said.
“What is going on in the Home Office makes me ashamed of our great country.
“The Prime Minister must act urgently to halt this deportation and all other Windrush deportations.
“Heads must roll over this and the home secretary and immigration minister must consider their positions.”
The row threatened to undermine Mrs May’s efforts to draw a line under the issue following Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s apology in the Commons on Monday for the “appalling” way some people had been treated.
Ms Rudd announced she was setting up a taskforce to help people, many of whom came to Britain as schoolchildren as long ago as the 1940s, to regularise their immigration status following warnings they could be deported unless they could prove they were entitled to be in the UK.
Amid rising anger, Mrs May met leaders of 12 Caribbean countries who were attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London for talks in No 10 yesterday.
The Prime Minister said the Government accepted those who arrived from the Caribbean before 1973, when new rules came in, and who had been living in the UK without significant time away were entitled to remain, as were the “vast majority” who arrived subsequently.
“I want to dispel any impression that my Government is in some sense clamping down on Commonwealth citizens, particularly those from the Caribbean,” she said.
“I take this issue very seriously.”