Inhuman and cruel persecution of Windrush Brits
Minister admits Windrush Brits ‘wrongly deported’ as PM forced into migrant U-turn
THE Home Secretary grovelled in the Commons yesterday over a deportation threat to thousands of migrants living in the UK since the 1940s.
Amber Rudd also admitted she will have to find out how many, if any, Commonwealth citizens have already been kicked out because of a lack of official paperwork.
A team will now process the immigration status of those at risk in two weeks.
She said: “Frankly, some of the ways they have been treated has been wrong, has been appalling and I am sorry.”
Ms Rudd said she was “concerned the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes lose sight of the individual.”
Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes seemed to suggest some may have already been expelled. She said: “I am determined … to say we will have no more of this.” Those arriving from the West Indies on the Empire Windrush in 1948 have been hit. Labour MP David Lammy blamed Theresa May, who was Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. He said: “This is a day of national shame and it has come about because of a ‘hostile environment’ policy that was begun under the Prime Minister.
“If you lie down with dogs you catch fleas – that is what has happened with the far-right rhetoric in this country.”
The storm forced Mrs May to reverse her refusal to see Commonwealth leaders about the issue. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: “It is an absolute scandal the Home Office doesn’t even know how many people they wrongly deported.”