UK minister quits over immigration scandal

LONDON - Britain's interior minister resigned on Sunday amid a scandal over authorities' mistreatment of longterm UK residents wrongly caught up in a government drive to reduce illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, Sajid Javid has become the UK's first home secretary from an ethnic minority background after Amber Rudd's exit.

The son of a Pakistani bus driver said he would review immigration policy to make sure it was fair and people were treated with "dignity and respect."

Prime Minister Theresa May's office said late on Sunday that May had accepted the resignation of Home Secretary Amber Rudd over the "Windrush scandal," which has dominated headlines in Britain for days and has sparked intense criticism of the Conservative government's tough immigration policies.

The furore has grown since the Guardian newspaper reported that some people who came to the UK from the Caribbean in the decades after World War II, had recently been refused medical care in Britain or threatened with deportation because they could not produce paperwork proving their right to reside in the country.

Those affected belong to the "Windrush generation," named for the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to Britain, which was seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

They and subsequent Caribbean migrants came from British colonies or ex-colonies and had an automatic right to settle in the UK. But some have been ensnared by tough new rules introduced since 2012 that were intended to make Britain a "hostile environment" for illegal immigrants.

Legal migrants have been denied housing, jobs or medical treatment because of requirements that landlords, employers and doctors check people's immigration status. Others have been told by the government that they are in Britain illegally and must leave.

"What has happened to the Windrush generation isn't an anomaly. It's not due to an administrative error. It's a consequence of the hostile environment created by this (Conservative) government," London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the opposition Labour Party, said on Sunday.

The policy was introduced at a time when May, now the prime minister, was home secretary.

The opposition Liberal Democrat party's home affairs spokesperson, Ed Davey, said Rudd had become "the fall guy to protect the prime minister."

In recent weeks, Rudd and May have apologised repeatedly to the Windrush generation, saying all pre-1973 Commonwealth immigrants who don't already have British citizenship will get it, and those affected will get compensation.