The story so far: A recently-leaked report of the United Kingdom Home Office revealed that the almost three decades of legislation partly aimed at reducing the non-white population in the country eventually caused the Windrush immigration scandal that broke out in 2018, The Guardian reported on Monday, May 30.
The publication of the report commissioned by the Home Office was reportedly suppressed last year. According to the British daily, the 52-page analysis stated that “the deep-rooted racism of the Windrush scandal” could be attributed to immigration legislation from 1950 to 1981 designed in part to lessen the number of “people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”.
What is the Windrush generation?
The ‘Windrush generation’ is a generation of people who were invited to Britain from Caribbean nations between 1948 and 1971 to help plug the labour shortage and rebuild the country after the destruction of World War Two. They were allowed to lawfully live and work in Britain as part of the extended Colonial empire.
The name ‘Windrush’ comes from a ship called the ‘Windrush Empire’ on which the first group of nearly 500 Commonwealth citizens arrived in the UK in June 1948, from countries such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
Some of them arrived without passports or as eight or nine-year-old children on the strength of their parents’ passports, as they had been invited by the British Empire, which had colonised their countries.
The University of Oxford estimates that over 5,00,000 British residents born in a Commonwealth nation arrived in the UK before 1971.
Immigration from the Caribbean to the U.K. largely stopped in 1971, when the Immigration Act was passed. It granted Commonwealth citizens already in the country indefinite leave to remain, but any foreign-born British passport holder post the passage of the Act would have to possess a work permit or proof that a previous generation was born in the country to continue to stay in the U.K.
What was the Windrush scandal?
The Windrush scandal surfaced in early 2018 when The Guardian began covering the stories of individuals belonging to the Windrush generation, who were wrongly being labelled illegal immigrants.
The issue snowballed, revealing that hundreds of naturalised British citizens who had come from Commonwealth countries years ago were now stuck in tangles with British immigration authorities. Despite spending over five to six decades in the U.K., they were being asked to provide proof of settlement and evidence of their lives in Britain, which they had never before been required to keep.
In some cases, several such citizens were detained by immigration officials, faced the risk of deportation, or were denied their rights to employment, residence, and healthcare by the National Health Service (NHS).
A prominent case that emerged in late 2017 was that of Paulette Wilson, a woman in her sixties who had come to Britain as a child in the 1960s. As per the law, she had indefinite leave to remain in the U.K., and she had also worked as a cook in the House of Commons for years. Despite this, the Home Office served her a letter when she was in her 50s, declaring her an illegal immigrant.
After spending years caught in bureaucratic tangles, she spent a week in a detention centre before being taken to the Heathrow airport, the usual point of departure for detainees sent back to their countries of origin. Her deportation was halted after the courts stepped in.
However, many who struggled like Ms. Wilson were eventually wrongly deported; the Home Office revealed in 2018 that nearly 63 immigrants from the Caribbean might have been wrongly deported.
Commonwealth heads of state react
The Windrush generation scandal broke right when leaders of Commonwealth countries were set to arrive in the U.K. for a summit with the then-Prime Minister Theresa May. Leaders of Caribbean nations took strong exception to the Windrush revelations. Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness pointed out that the Windrush generation, who had enriched Britain and British society for years, were now unable “to claim their place as citizens”.
Following this, Prime Minister May apologised to the Commonwealth leaders for “any anxiety” that had been caused to those belonging to the Windrush generation.
The backdrop of the scandal
As Home Secretary in 2012, Theresa May outlined a strategy to weed out illegal immigrants. “The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal migration,” she said to the press. This was believed to have led to the crackdown on Commonwealth citizens by U.K immigration authorities.
Immigration legislation in the U.K. post-2012 was largely built around what came to be known as the “hostile environment” policy. The 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts essentially empowered officials and even private banks, employers, landlords, and service providers to determine whether their client or employee was an illegal immigrant and consequently deny them services. It gave immigration officials the power to identify illegal immigrants living in the country, simplify their removal process, and limit their right to appeal.
As a partial result of the policy, authorities also began to ask many Windrush generation citizens to provide evidentiary documentation of their life in Britain.
In 2018, it was also revealed that thousands of landing slips recording the dates of arrival of Windrush immigrants were destroyed when a department of the Home Office moved to another building in 2010, despite warnings from employees.
Government measures and the political fallout of Windrush
After the scandal broke out, the government in April 2018 announced an inquiry into the Windrush controversy and a scheme to give British citizenship and compensation to those belonging to the generation.
However, amid growing criticism from the Opposition, civil society, and Windrush campaigners, the then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned in late April. She admitted that many Windrush citizens has been mistreated by the Home office and said that their treatment “appalled” her. She was replaced by former Home Secretary Sajid Javed.
In 2020, a government inquiry report revealed that the Home Office showed “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race”, and that the department’s outlook toward the Windrush generation had been consistent with “some elements of the definition of institutional racism.”
Following the report, Home Secretary Preeti Patel vowed that the Home Office would transform its culture and become a more “compassionate” department.
In 2021, it was revealed by the Home Office that 21 people had died since the launch of the compensation scheme, still waiting for their compensations to be remitted. The Home Affairs Committee found the same year that only 5 per cent of those targeted in the Windrush scandal had received their compensation.
In March this year, a report by an independent inspector stated that the Home Office had failed to make tangible progress in transforming its culture and implementing the recommendations of the 2020 report.
Last month, Britain’s immigration policy had come under the scanner for a new plan to send asylum seekers “unofficially” arriving in the U.K. to Rwanda. The plan was heavily criticized by refugee organisations and the Opposition.
- A recently-leaked report of the United Kingdom Home Office revealed that the almost three decades of legislation partly aimed at reducing the non-white population in the country
- The ‘Windrush generation’ is a generation of people who were invited to Britain from Caribbean nations between 1948 and 1971 to help plug the labour shortage
- After the scandal broke out, the government announced an inquiry into the Windrush controversy and a scheme to give British citizenship and compensation to those belonging to the generation
