Windrush Scandal

AndrewJB · Post by **AndrewJB** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:06 pm

I haven't seen anyone post on this, so apologies if it's a duplicate.

Few things illustrate the pointlessness of our government than Theresa May's policy of hounding people out of the country, who came here in good faith and contributed for the majority of their lives to make Britain a better place. What was the thinking and the justification behind doing this? The Tories often rationalise cruelty in their policies by claiming it'll save us money, but this is them spending money to be nasty and heartless.

The policy was put in place by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, and she needs to be held to account.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... licy-cruel" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imploding Turtle · Post by **Imploding Turtle** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:11 pm

AndrewJB wrote: What was the thinking and the justification behind doing this?

Courting the immigration extremist vote was probably their thinking.

dsr · Post by **dsr** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:16 pm

There wasn't any thinking behind it - that was the problem, and has been for years. The Home Office (not fit for purpose, then and now) was told to get rid of x number of illegal immigrants, but it's hard work targeting genuine freeloaders who know how the system works, so instead they chose to go for the soft targets like pensioners who had no paperwork because it wasn't required at that time. The numbers still show an illegal immigrant deported, and the Home Office had no concern at all that the person was an actual human being who was being treated shamefully. To them, these human beings were just a tick in a box.

The politicians supposedly in charge, including Theresa May, were badly at fault. But ultimately the problem is that the Home Office is staffed by time servers and jobsworths with no interest in doing the job right, just in doing the job adequately enough not to get sacked. And it hasn't, for many years, had a competent Home Secretary who could sort it.

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:32 pm

If you get a job in Saudi Arabia for an oil contract etc. you are expected to stay for the work contract and then leave. If you then went AWOL for fifty years you would still be expected to leave. If the 'windrush' folk were given poor treatment then they should have up sticks and gone back to where they came from and the same after the work contract ended. It was their choice to come and they had the same choice to go back, if not satisfied.

The same should be applied to refugees. Once the problem in their home countries is over then they should go back. Why should taxpayers pay for them?

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:41 pm

What are we wearing hair shirts for this time ?.... I cant keep up

Sidney1st · Post by **Sidney1st** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:42 pm

dsr wrote:There wasn't any thinking behind it - that was the problem, and has been for years. The Home Office (not fit for purpose, then and now) was told to get rid of x number of illegal immigrants, but it's hard work targeting genuine freeloaders who know how the system works, so instead they chose to go for the soft targets like pensioners who had no paperwork because it wasn't required at that time. The numbers still show an illegal immigrant deported, and the Home Office had no concern at all that the person was an actual human being who was being treated shamefully. To them, these human beings were just a tick in a box.

The politicians supposedly in charge, including Theresa May, were badly at fault. But ultimately the problem is that the Home Office is staffed by time servers and jobsworths with no interest in doing the job right, just in doing the job adequately enough not to get sacked. And it hasn't, for many years, had a competent Home Secretary who could sort it.

This will be the most sensible comment on here, guaranteed and will be spot on.

Sidney1st · Post by **Sidney1st** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:46 pm

The system is crap, the people working in it will blame the system and not much will be done to improve said system.

You can blame whichever politician you like, but it's been a crap system for years like many of the systems of government were, are and will continue to be.

Vino blanco · Post by **Vino blanco** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:49 pm

Theresa May should be taken outside Whitehall and hung drawn and quartered, whilst any person, whose family is in any way related to the Windrush Scandal, should be given £5 million compensation, and whilst we're at it, all Brexit voters should be rounded up and shot at dawn. That should sort it all out.

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 pm

... The Guardian would then have less to write about and sell their paper. The only thing that matters is The Guardian, after all.

dsr · Post by **dsr** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:56 pm

Pstotto wrote:If you get a job in Saudi Arabia for an oil contract etc. you are expected to stay for the work contract and then leave. If you then went AWOL for fifty years you would still be expected to leave. If the 'windrush' folk were given poor treatment then they should have up sticks and gone back to where they came from and the same after the work contract ended. It was their choice to come and they had the same choice to go back, if not satisfied.

The same should be applied to refugees. Once the problem in their home countries is over then they should go back. Why should taxpayers pay for them?

Windrush is nothing to do with that. These people from the Caribbean were at the time British subjects who came to Britain to live as they had an absolute right to do. They didn't get any immigration paperwork because it didn't count as immigration, they were as free to leave in the UK as Scots are to live in England. And most of the people concerned were children at the time, it was their parents who "failed" to get the paperwork anyway.

Sidney1st · Post by **Sidney1st** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:01 pm

What has the government said?
Responding to pressure, the government is creating task force to help applicants demonstrate they are entitled to work in the UK. It aims to resolve cases within two weeks of evidence being provided.

Announcing the move, Home Secretary Amber Rudd apologised for the "appalling" way the Windrush Generation had been treated.

She told MPs the Home Office had "become too concerned with policy and strategy - and loses sight of the individual".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43782241" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clarets4me · Post by **Clarets4me** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:35 pm

Absolutley scandalous and poorly thought through implementation of a correct policy...

To the surprise of some on here, I'm sure, the paper kicking up the biggest stink about this is the " Daily Mail ", who also had the " Corjones " to name the murderers of Stephen Lawrence on it's front page back in 1997, and challenge them to sue.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:40 pm

Some usual suspects being wrong as usual already.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:40 pm

Racists gonna race

Sidney1st · Post by **Sidney1st** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:44 pm

Clarets4me wrote:Absolutley scandalous and poorly thought through implementation of a correct policy...

To the surprise of some on here, I'm sure, the paper kicking up the biggest stink about this is the " Daily Mail ", who also had the " Corjones " to name the murderers of Stephen Lawrence on it's front page back in 1997, and challenge them to sue.

You can't mention that paper on here, the usual suspects will choke on it before they read it BUT they'll know what's it's content is

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:45 pm

The Home Office destroyed thousands of landing card slips recording Windrush immigrants’ arrival dates in the UK, despite staff warnings that the move would make it harder to check the records of older Caribbean-born residents experiencing residency difficulties.

A former Home Office employee said the records, stored in the basement of a government tower block, were a vital resource for case workers when they were asked to find information about someone’s arrival date in the UK from the West Indies – usually when the individual was struggling to resolve immigration status problems.

Although the home secretary, Amber Rudd, has promised to make it easier for Windrush-generation residents to regularise their status, the destruction of the database is likely to make the process harder, even with the support of the new taskforce announced this week.

The former employee (who has asked for his name not to be printed) said it was decided in 2010 to destroy the disembarkation cards, which dated back to the 1950s and 60s, when the Home Office’s Whitgift Centre in Croydon was closed and the staff were moved to another site. Employees in his department told their managers it was a bad idea, because these papers were often the last remaining record of a person’s arrival date, in the event of uncertainty or lost documents. The files were destroyed in October that year, when Theresa May was home secretary.

A person’s arrival date is crucial to a citizenship application, because the 1971 Immigration Act gave people who had already moved to Britain indefinite leave to remain.

When staff were asked to find evidence of an arrival from the Caribbean or other former colonies and had difficulty tracing any other records, senior officers would request the key to the basement of the neighbouring building and consult the landing cards. They recorded the names, dates of arrival and in some cases the name of the ship.

“Sometimes the Passport Office would call up, and people would say: ‘I’ll look in the basement,’” the ex-employee said.

After the destruction of the archive, when an individual requested confirmation of an arrival date, staff had to reply stating there was no record of it.

From around 2013 onwards, he said, the number of requests from people from the Caribbean began to increase.

“Every week or two, someone would say: ‘I’ve got another one here,’” he said. “People were writing to say: ‘I’ve been here 45 years, I’ve never had a passport, I’ve never needed a passport. Now I’m being told I’m not British, because there is no record of me’.

“Because it was no longer possible to search in the archive of landing cards, people would be sent a standard letter that would state: ‘We have searched our records, we can find no trace of you in our files.’”

Immigration lawyers have repeatedly criticised the Home Office’s insistence that it is up to individuals to provide copious evidence proving their right to be in the UK. If UK officials had kept a record of everyone granted indefinite leave to remain, they say, the problem would never have arisen.

Less than a month ago, responding to concern over NHS refusal to grant cancer treatment to Albert Thompson, the prime minister said he “needed to evidence his settled status”.

The Labour MP David Lammy said: “This revelation from a whistleblower 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 within our immigration system.

“It is an absolute disgrace that the Home Office has destroyed these documents and then forced Windrush-generation migrants to try and prove their status, threatening them with deportation and stripping them of their rights.

“This was no accident and the orders to destroys records must have come from somebody at the top of the department. It is time for the home secretary to do the honourable thing, take responsibility for this fiasco and resign.”

The Home Office acknowledged that the UK Border Agency decided in 2010 to “securely dispose of some documents known as registration slips. These slips provided details of an individual’s date of entry but did not provide any reliable evidence relating to ongoing residence in the UK or their immigration status.”

Officials said in a statement that the decision was taken on data protection grounds, “to ensure that personal data … should not be kept for longer than necessary. Keeping these records would have represented a potential breach of these principles”.

The Home Office added that in deciding immigration cases, it considers alternative documents, such as tax records and utility bills, as evidence of ongoing residency. “The disposal of registration slips would therefore have no bearing on immigration cases whereby Commonwealth citizens are proving residency in the UK.”

However, the former employee said he believed the decision was not taken on data protection grounds but because there was not enough room for them to be accommodated in the new building.

Home Office staff members have been reluctant to consider alternative records, such as National Insurance contributions, unless they are presented within a dossier of papers proving residency every year for decades. People who have been classified as being in the UK illegally are often unable to put together the evidence, and cannot afford legal assistance.

Many Windrush-generation individuals who have had difficulties providing evidence of their status have told the Guardian how they were repeatedly told their names were “not in the system”.

Judy Griffith, 63, who flew to the UK from Barbados in 1963, aged nine, and who was unable to return home to visit her sick mother in 2016 because of her disputed immigration status, was told by officials that they could find no record of her. “They keep saying that I am not on their system – but of course I can’t be on their system because when I came here in 1963 there were no computers,” she said. As a result, she was unable to see her mother before she died and could not attend the funeral.

The former Home Office employee, who worked in a team of around 50 in the data protection unit, said staff had wanted to offer the landing card files to public archives, but were told there was no interest.

He said he asked managers at the time what would happen in the case of a dispute. He said he was told the majority of people on the landing cards were in their 70s and 80s and most of their cases would have been resolved, and the office did “not have the resources to keep them”. He remembered protesting: “Even if half the people are dead, they are historical records.” His manager responded that the cards were “redundant”.

He said he noticed a change in approach to these cases after the announcement of the “hostile environment” policy by May, then home secretary. In 2009 and 2010, managers gave case workers and members of his team time to look into cases. “Generally speaking, most Home Office staff want to try to do the right thing and be fair, within the rules,” he said.

But from 2013 onwards, he said, staff were “given no leeway to make a judgment call”. The changed atmosphere combined with staff cuts made it a more unpleasant place to work and many experienced staff took redundancy, he said. The people who remained were told: “These are the rules, stick to them.”

He decided to leave at around this time. “I am so angry that people are being treated in a way which is just abhorrent.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ex-staffer

Scandalous!

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:49 pm

Immigration and the 'windrush' issue is not about race, it's about immigration.

According to dsr, the whole of the commonwealth could have settled here. When did that change? I know Spanish people who came here just to give birth so that their children would have a UK passport.

The point I made about 'if you don't like, don't stay' is valid for any country and anybody.

Incidentally I have a national health number and I was born in 1962, before computers.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:56 pm

Pstotto wrote:

Incidentally I have a national health number and I was born in 1962, before computers.

I'll ignore the rest of your usual tripe and pick up on this, and point you towards this section of the above article:

Home Office staff members have been reluctant to consider alternative records, such as National Insurance contributions, unless they are presented within a dossier of papers proving residency every year for decades. People who have been classified as being in the UK illegally are often unable to put together the evidence, and cannot afford legal assistance.

AndrewJB · Post by **AndrewJB** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:00 pm

The government changed the law in 2014 without debate, or saying anything about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ed-in-2014" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To say it's down to rogue Home Office employees trying to hit targets is stretching credibility. The government were aware of the issue long before Rudd made her apology yesterday. As per my original link May refused to intervene in the case where a man is facing huge medical bills for cancer treatement, leaving it up to him to 'prove' he's lived here for as long as he has (he's got to show proof for every year he's been here). Consider the case of the cricketer (below):

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... even-years" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - is this really 'correct policy'? I just see the needless harassment of an elderly man.

The whole thing is Kafka-esque. Putting such a burden of proof on people like this seems to me specifically designed to push people out. Put yourselves in their shoes, and what would you think?

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:03 pm

I think the majority of us would struggle to find 4 separate documents for each and every year we've lived in the UK.

aggi · Post by **aggi** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:05 pm

Some top tips if you are deported https://twitter.com/davidlammy/status/9 ... 82560?s=21" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Try to be 'Jamaican'

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:09 pm

One has a national health number and a national insurance number as a UK citizen, troll on a pencil. That is the basis of any UK citizenship, plus birth certificate if born here. Passports, driving licences, bank accounts, addresses are optional things.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:13 pm

Pstotto wrote:One has a national health number and a national insurance number as a UK citizen, troll on a pencil. That is the basis of any UK citizenship, plus birth certificate if born here. Passports, driving licences, bank accounts, addresses are optional things.

These people have tried to prove their residency with their national insurance number. The Home Office is not accepting this as proof.

Please read the information provided to you.

dsr · Post by **dsr** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:15 pm

It's the whole topsy-turveydom of the whole thing. The Home Office admits that they have destroyed immigration records as recently as 2010, because it breached the rules on holding personal data. And then they say they will deport people because they don't hold any personal data about them. It's insanity.

Why don't they turn it round. Say that Windrush geneartion people will be deported if the Home Office has evidence that their story is wrong. Put the burden of proof on the accuser, not the defendant.

brexit · Post by **brexit** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:49 pm

oh my bad - thought this was a dodgy curry house post.

Walton · Post by **Walton** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:53 pm

It's rare I agree with DSR but I do here, wholeheartedly.

AndrewJB · Post by **AndrewJB** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:58 pm

Pstotto wrote:Immigration and the 'windrush' issue is not about race, it's about immigration.

.

I don't think anyone has said it's about race, but it certainly has nothing to do with immigration. These people came here forty, fifty, and sixty years ago. What it is about is deportation and repatriation.

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:01 pm

It's no worse than the ATOS Healthcare scandal that I was subjected too and still have the threats hanging over me as a sword of Damocles. but no commons apology for that, forthcoming, in spite of several thousand suicides. The whole of government is a scandal if one probes it all.

What about the Stephen Lawrence murder case? If it's white on black it's a massive big deal but if it's black on black then not, as if one motivation for a crime of that sort was somehow on a scale of press interest.

There's been around sixty knife deaths on London this year and nearly all of them black on black and yet will those stories be in the news for the next 20 years and ongoing? I doubt. And then there's an outcry about stop and search etc.

I met an illegal immigrant yesterday and spoke to him. He knew no English and was loitering with criminal intent, quite clearly misplaced and the same last year with one sleeping in the train station lifts nearby.

There's genuine cases in all things but they are not all innocents because of a system, like troll on a pencil and his self righteousness prig ideology makes out. I won't read the blurb, I know government failing first hand, but like I said, don't like England, go somewhere else.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:04 pm

Doesn't sound like you like England too much

dsr · Post by **dsr** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:05 pm

Pstotto wrote:I won't read the blurb, I know government failing first hand, but like I said, don't like England, go somewhere else.

I don't think you've read any of it. This is about people who like England and have been here for fifty, sixty years, and the government is trying to kick them out.

Lancasterclaret · Post by **Lancasterclaret** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:10 pm

He's off his ******* rocker DSR

And like Walton, I fully agree with DSR

RingoMcCartney · Post by **RingoMcCartney** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:17 pm

UpTheBeehole wrote:I think the majority of us would struggle to find 4 separate documents for each and every year we've lived in the UK.

Despite being a complete clown, I'm sure even you'd be able to find the 44 that you'd require.

AndrewJB · Post by **AndrewJB** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:17 pm

Going back to my original post, we know that Theresa May was the architect of this policy (what she called at the time a "hostile environment"), and the Home Office only started acting this way after she became Home Secretary. We know immigration records were destroyed, and the law was amended taking away the specific protections. We know hundreds, or possibly thousands of people have been put through Kafka-esque ordeals, some losing their jobs, and or their homes. And possibly some deported. We know the policy was being implemented with such vigour that about half of all the appeals were upheld. So again, what was the point of it all? What have we as a country gained? How much did it all cost? How much will it cost to set things right (and how is she going to fund it?)?

RingoMcCartney · Post by **RingoMcCartney** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:21 pm

UpTheBeehole wrote:Doesn't sound like you like England too much

Doesn't sound like youre over keen on life.

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:47 pm

This is a handy little scandal for folks to express their outrage at. Nobody knew anything about it ...its got a neat catchy name pre -supplied , and the whole tale has been released on various media outlets simultaneously , to allow a nation of handwringers desperate for yet another reason to self flagellate a chance to virtue signal to their hearts' content.

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:52 pm

Bore off randomclaret2

Greenmile · Post by **Greenmile** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:56 pm

randomclaret2 wrote:This is a handy little scandal for folks to express their outrage at. Nobody knew anything about it ...its got a neat catchy name pre -supplied , and the whole tale has been released on various media outlets simultaneously , to allow a nation of handwringers desperate for yet another reason to self flagellate a chance to virtue signal to their hearts' content.

Not everyone, just those of us who give a **** about our fellow citizens, irrespective of their race.

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:00 pm

....when prompted Greenmile

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:01 pm

" bore off " Haha.....

UpTheBeehole · Post by **UpTheBeehole** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:01 pm

The usual turds spoiling a thread as usual

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:02 pm

Youll be on to the next " outrage " next week...letting us lnow how much you love your fellow citizens...haha...

randomclaret2 · Post by **randomclaret2** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:03 pm

"Turds ".....haha...naughty boy lol.... Teacher will be cross

Greenmile · Post by **Greenmile** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:18 pm

randomclaret2 wrote:Youll be on to the next " outrage " next week...letting us lnow how much you love your fellow citizens...haha...

...and you’ll be there letting everyone know you don’t give a **** about anyone but yourself. I know who I’d rather be.

Pstotto · Post by **Pstotto** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:02 pm

Those fellow citizens don't give a **** about you lot, believe me.

Another distraction from the DSS Nazi battering of the excluded and the ill etc.

IanMcL · Post by **IanMcL** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:09 pm

They were invited over to the promised land. Got racist abuse, worked hard to be able bring their family over, for a new future. 'No Blacks, No Irish, No Dog's. Year's later...we get the inept Tories and their 'anti everyone' policies. Shame on the British government.

AndrewJB · Post by **AndrewJB** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:24 pm

PStotto makes a good point above, that many people have also suffered greatly under the disability assessments regime, and I'd venture to guess the benefits system as a whole - all in a similar fashion to the Windrush victims. If it were just one thing in isolation, then you might pass it off as glitches in the system; however the evidence to me suggests this government has purposefully made life worse for vulnerable segments of our population over the last eight years. Whatever your political persuasions, the government shouldn't be acting against people in this way.

Theresa May has now apologised, and pledged compensation for those adversely affected. I wonder how she plans to fund this?

Hipper · Post by **Hipper** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:25 pm

Pstotto wrote:...... but like I said, don't like England, go somewhere else.

Ironic that in fact that they can't get a passport to leave, as the story above shows.

They've been effectively wiped off the system, as far as the Home Office is concerned. It is ludicrous.

conyoviejo · Post by **conyoviejo** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:30 pm

IanMcL wrote:They were invited over to the promised land. Got racist abuse, worked hard to be able bring their family over, for a new future. 'No Blacks, No Irish, No Dog's. Year's later...we get the inept Tories and their 'anti everyone' policies. Shame on the British government.

Agreed,these people have been treated like dogschite..Unbelievable what the government has done to these hard working British citizens..Shame on the Tories..

Hipper · Post by **Hipper** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 6:32 pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43794366" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Burnley Ace · Post by **Burnley Ace** » Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:16 pm

The Immigration Act 1971 removed the Right to Remain and replaced it with the (much reduced) Right to Abode. Any Commonwealth Citizen was given the right to British Citizenship. For some reason, perhaps because they didn't think it necessary, there were a number of those eligible who didn't apply. At the time there was a publicity campaign explaining the change.

Fast forward 40 years and the unintended consequences of their failure to apply for British Citizenship and the new policy that it's the responsibility of the applicant to prove their status means difficulties have arisen.

The destruction of paperwork (arrival cards) is a bit of a red herring. The cards themselves aren't sufficient evidence, they weren't technically needed (breaching DPA), they, according to the retention and destruction policy, didn't need to be kept and there was no storage space in the new office - I doubt the Home Secretary makes decisions about which docs are saved and which are destroyed in those circumstances.

The ones making political capital are the same ones who don't like the governments immigration policy.