Rudd says sorry to Windrush immigrants
● Home Secretary calls her own department’s actions ‘appalling’
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has been forced to apologise after the government admitted it may have wrongly deported people from the socalled Windrush generation who have lived in the UK legally for decades.
Ms Rudd told the House of Commons she was sorry for the “appalling” way her department had treated British subjects who came to the UK in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, predominantly from the Caribbean.
Several cases have emerged of Windrush immigrants and their British-born children being denied medical care, losing jobs or being threatened with deportation after being unable to prove they have a right to live in the UK.
Paulette Wilson, a 61-yearold cook who worked in the kitchens at the House of Commons, was held at Yarl’s Wood immigration centre for a week in October and was only saved from deportation after her MP intervened.
In an urgent question to the Home Secretary in the Commons, Labour MP David Lammy said it was a “national day of shame”.
Named after the vessel that brought the first group of immigrants from the Caribbean to rebuilt post-war Britain in 1948, many of the Windrush generation arrived believing their rights were guaranteed for life and never applied for a passport or other documentation confirming their residency rights.
Facing embarrassment on the eve of a Commonwealth summit in London, Downing Street was forced into a U-turn, promising Theresa May would meet representatives of Caribbean nations today to hear their concerns. A request for a meeting was reportedly refused at the weekend, although Downing Street said the Prime Minister had not been made aware of the approach.
Number 10 said Mrs May wanted to make sure that “noone with the right to be here will be made to leave”.
Amid growing concern about the government’s “hostile environment” strategy to counter illegal immigration, Ms Rudd revealed she was “concerned that the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes lose sight of the individual”. The Home Secretary announced the creation of a new taskforce in the Home Office to speed up the regularisation of the immigration status of people who arrived in the UK as long ago as the 1940s.
“This is about individuals and we have seen the individual stories and they have been, some of them, terrible to hear and that is why I have acted,” Ms Rudd said.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid had said he was “deeply concerned” at the treatment of people who were “long-standing pillars of our community”. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson also posted on Twitter backing calls for action.
After immigration minister Caroline Nokes said some individuals may already have been deported in error, Ms Rudd told MPS she was not aware of “any specific cases”.
A 2014 report by the Legal Action Group charity suggested the number of longterm legal immigrants affected could run into the “low 10,000s”.
Legislation introduced in 2006 requires employers to check the immigration status of applicants, while a 2014 law requires similar checks to access NHS services and to rent accommodation.
For those caught up in it, the Windrush scandal is the stuff of nightmares. Having lived in the UK for decades, many immigrants from Commonwealth countries have been told they are in the UK illegally and ordered to either prove otherwise or leave. British citizens welcomed here as children have been treated as mere numbers in a bureaucratic exercise flawed by the fact it is the UK government which failed to retain the necessary records relating the citizenship of immigrants who came to Britain from the Caribbean between 1948 and 1971. The first that many knew about their questioned status was when they received letters informing them they were illegal aliens. What a humiliating thing to happen to people who have every right to consider themselves British.
If the very fact of the existence of this bureaucratic mess wasn’t scandal enough, the political response to it has been pitifully lacking. By the time Home Secretary Amber Rudd got to her feet in the House of Commons yesterday, scores of British citizens had suffered the indignity of being treated as unwanted strangers in their home country. Labour MP David Lammy was quite right to describe this as a matter of national shame. The Home Secretary has promised the establishment of a task force in the Home Office which will help members of the Windrush generation, ensuring none lose access to public services and other entitlements. Ms Rudd added that the way some of those caught up in this scandal of the government’s making had been treated was appalling. She will find no disagreement from us.
It is impossible to consider the plight of the Windrush generation without considering that their race may have had something to do with the careless way their citizenship status was dealt with. We wonder whether, if they had been white, any problem would have arisen. Ms Rudd was right to offer an apology to those treated so shamefully by a Home Office that she admitted “sometimes loses sight” of individuals but she must go further.
Those who have suffered due to bureaucratic incompetence should have the right to claim compensation. At the very least, anyone forced out of pocket because they had to hire lawyers or apply again for citizenship should have all costs reimbursed. The Windrush scandal is a stain on the UK and the sooner it’s cleaned up, the better.