A former senior immigration official has said the impact of the Home Office’s “hostile environment” strategy on the Windrush generation was terrible but it was unlikely any individuals would have been deported.
David Wood, the deputy chief executive of the UK Border Agency for nearly five years until 2013, said the consequences for Windrush immigrants had not been foreseen.
He also admitted that recent disclosures had shown there was a problem with the policy, which was brought forward during Theresa May’s time as home secretary. “It’s very poor that this has happened,” Wood told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“It would be very, very unlikely for anybody, for one of these Windrush individuals, to be deported from the UK on the basis of these policies because there are safety checks. There is appeals, they would have to go through court processes in everything and it would fairly quickly come to light that the person had a proper entitlement to be in the UK.”
Challenged on the way the strategy had affected people such as Albert Thompson, the Londoner asked to pay £54,000 for cancer treatment despite having lived in the UK for 44 years, Wood replied: “If there are people affected in those ways then it is a possible … yes it’s a terrible consequence of a policy that has not been thought through for unforeseen consequences like this.”
David Laws, a former Liberal Democrat MP who served as a Cabinet Office minister during the coalition, said he was surprised that common sense had not been applied to individual cases.
What is the Windrush deportation crisis?
Who are the Windrush generation?
They are people who arrived in the UK after the second world war from Caribbean countries at the invitation of the British government. The first group arrived on the ship MV Empire Windrush in June 1948.
What is happening to them?
An estimated 50,000 people face the risk of deportation if they never formalised their residency status and do not have the required documentation to prove it.
Why is this happening now?
It stems from a policy, set out by Theresa May when she was home secretary, to make the UK ‘a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants’. It requires employers, NHS staff, private landlords and other bodies to demand evidence of people’s citizenship or immigration status.
Why do they not have the correct paperwork and status?
Some children, often travelling on their parents’ passports, were never formally naturalised and many moved to the UK before the countries in which they were born became independent, so they assumed they were British. In some cases, they did not apply for passports. The Home Office did not keep a record of people entering the country and granted leave to remain, which was conferred on anyone living continuously in the country since before 1 January 1973.
What is the government doing to resolve the problem?
On Monday, the home secretary Amber Rudd announced the creation of a new Home Office team dedicated to ensuring that Commonwealth-born long-term UK residents would no longer find themselves classified as being in the UK illegally.
Asked who was responsible for the problems that had come to light, he replied: “For consecutive governments over a huge period of time, not just in Theresa May’s time at the Home Office in fairness, we have not maintained a proper border system. Previous governments abolished exit checks completely.”
He said responsibility lay partly with those who had decided to dispose of the landing card records relating to the arrival of members of the Windrush generation.
“That seems to have been a silly decision, and secondly, I would have thought that for many of these people who have been in the country for decades, that common sense would indicate that it’s highly unlikely that they should be denied access both to our country and public services and I am surprised that with many of these cases more common sense has not been applied in dealing with their individual circumstances.”
