BRITAIN

West Indian residents arrived in Britain after the Second World War.

Intro: The Windrush scandal has humiliated many of our citizens and is a bad stain on the UK

MANY immigrants from Commonwealth countries have lived in the UK for decades. A vast number of them have now been told by the Home Office that they are in the UK illegally and have been ordered to either prove their status or leave. British citizens welcomed here as children have been treated as mere numbers in a bureaucratic exercise flawed by the fact the British Government itself failed to retain the necessary records relating to the citizenship of many of these people. Most came from the Caribbean between 1948 and 1971. The first that many became aware of their questioned status was when they received official government letters informing them they were illegal immigrants. What an utter humiliating thing to happen to people who have every right to consider themselves British.

The fact that this bureaucratic mess isn’t scandal enough, the adjoining political response to it has been woeful and pitifully lacking. By the time Home Secretary Amber Rudd got to her feet in the House of Commons earlier this week, scores of British citizens had suffered the crass 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. Given the way many have been treated this is the least they should expect.

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 and naturalisation status was dealt with. It is perfectly reasonable to question that, if those affected had been white, any such problems would have arisen. Amber Rudd was right to offer an unreserved apology to those treated so disgracefully by a Home Office and Government that loses sight of individuals. She must, however, go much further.

Those who have suffered due to bureaucratic incompetence should have the right to claim compensation for the indignity and injury they have suffered. At the very minimum, anyone forced out of pocket because they had to hire legal counsel or apply again for citizenship should have all costs reimbursed. The Windrush scandal is a stain on the UK and the sooner it’s cleared up, the better.

THE Home Office couldn’t have made a more humiliating hash of dealing with the toxic row over the Windrush generation.

As soon as it became clear that Caribbean migrants who have lived, worked, paid taxes and raised families here for 50 years or more were being stripped of their residency rights, ministers should have acted immediately and without prevarication to address this cruel and inhumane injustice.

Instead, they stalled and vacillated, giving the impression of callous indifference to the plight of decent people who have lost their jobs, been denied state benefits and NHS care and even forced out of Britain. Access to UK bank accounts were also denied.

The utter fiasco continued as Amber Rudd and Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes admitted that many may already have been deported and, astonishingly, didn’t know how many, or who they were.

The Windrush generation from countries such as Jamaica were invited here to help post-war reconstruction and have hugely enriched our cultural life. To even consider deporting them – especially when countless foreign criminals are allowed to live here with impunity – is a grotesque betrayal.

UNDER the 1971 Immigration Act, all Commonwealth citizens already living in the UK were given indefinite leave to remain. But the Home Office did not keep records of those given to stay or issue any documents confirming this. Many people never applied for passports or became naturalised, so it became virtually impossible to prove that they were in the UK legally.

Changes to immigration law – introduced under Labour in 2006, then toughened by the Coalition in 2014 – was aimed primarily to weed out visa over-stayers.

Thousands of landing card slips recording the arrival of migrants, including those of the Windrush generation, were destroyed in 2010. It is these slips that would have proven important to establish citizenship. Instead, people would be sent a standard government letter which said: ‘We have searched our records, we can find no trace of you.’ Many were then deported.

David Lammy who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on race and community, said: ‘This reveals that the problems being faced by the Windrush generation are not down to one-off bureaucratic errors but as a direct result of systemic incompetence, callousness and cruelty.’