Homeless migrant appeals for classmates to prove she was living in the UK before 1973

A MIGRANT who lived in Theresa May’s constituency 50 years ago fears deportation because she cannot prove her legal right to be in the UK.

Lawyers acting for Eleanor Rogers, 71, placed an appeal in the Maidenhead Advertiser, the Prime Minister’s local newspaper, pleading for pupils at school with Ms Rogers to come forward and bolster her case.

She says she came to the UK in the 1960s from her native Sierra Leone, but has no paperwork to prove she had been in this country prior to 1973.

Ms Rogers, who was left homeless in London, is facing the threat of possible deportation. Her lawyer Michael Ferguson, who works for the homeless charity the Passage, issued a call in November for anyone who might have known Ms Rogers during her time at Elmslie School to come forward.

Ms Rogers worked as a secretary and seamstress and had two children in the 1970s. But she suffered from mental health issues and lost her home.

Mr Ferguson told the local newspaper: “It’s important to prove when she arrived and that she was in the UK before 1973 and if I can’t prove that then she is vulnerable to Home Office removal action. She is destitute, she has nothing, but if I can prove she has the right to remain her situation completely changes and she will be able to get housing.”

In a day of further embarrassment for the Home Office, the deportation of the son of a Windrush migrant was temporarily halted.

Mozi Haynes, 35, was due to leave the country voluntarily on Wednesday to avoid the “shame” of deportation after two failed applications to stay in the UK.

His mother, Ruth Williams, who arrived in 1959 and has a British passport, raised her son’s case with David Lammy, the Tottenham MP, in a lastditch attempt to be heard.