The Windrush Scandal
The Windrush Scandal was a situation created when many of the Windrush Generation suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of immigration legislation because they couldn’t provide the paperwork to prove they had the right to stay in the UK. Either because they’d never been given any paperwork by previous governments in the first place, or because the government had destroyed their own copies of paperwork and suddenly put the onus on individuals to ‘prove’ their right to stay.
Many West Indians have been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights while they struggled to provide the information required by government. Some in the “hostile environment” created by the government policy are still fighting for justice in 2021.
Political Scandal - this is taken from 'The Jamaican Gleaner' 6/3/2019
The Windrush scandal is a 2018 British political scandal concerning Jamaicans and other Caribbean people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and, in around 63 cases, wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office.
Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries, as members of the Windrush Generation (so named after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948).
As part of the ongoing process to “correct the wrongs”, the British Home Office undertook compensation consultations, which ended in November 2018, which was to determine the number of affected persons eligible for remuneration for losses incurred under the UK Government’s aggressive immigration policy.
UK Government Slammed For Failing Its Windrush Immigrants
'The Jamaican Gleaner' reported on the story on 19/3/2020:
"An independent report sharply criticised Britain’s Conservative government for the way it treated long-term United Kingdom residents who were wrongly caught up in a government drive to reduce illegal immigration.
The report said the UK Home Office exhibited “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” towards the issue of race and the history of the mostly Caribbean immigrants involved that are “consistent with some definitions of institutional racism.”
Perspectives on the Windrush generation scandal: A response from David Lammy MP
