Express & Star comment: Windrush shambles is a disgrace
The Government’s treatment of Windrush immigrants is a national scandal.
Arriving in the UK after the Second World War from Commonwealth countries, they went on to help rebuild Britain after the ravages of the war.
Shamefully, it has now emerged that some of those who arrived in this country decades ago – let’s not forget, at the invitation of the British government – have been wrongly identified as illegal immigrants.
An estimated 50,000 people are affected.
They face the risk of deportation if they never formalised their residency status and do not have the required documentation to prove it.
This whole episode shows that there is seemingly no end to the incompetence of Theresa May’s administration.
To be blunt, this is certainly not Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s finest hour.
She frequently comes across as being like a rabbit in the headlights, but on this particular issue her apparent confusion and complete lack of control of the situation has been a desperate sight to behold.
It is all well and good apologising to the people that her Government has let down.
The announcement of a Home Office task force to deal with Windrush immigrants is welcome.
But as is so often the case with this Conservative government, this sorry episode smacks of an all-too-late attempt to extinguish a fire that was entirely of its own making.
Mrs Rudd has been in her post for two years. Her predecessor, Mrs May, served at the Home Office for seven years. Between them they still have plenty of questions to answer.
It is not good enough for the Government to say they have no idea how many Commonwealth citizens legally residing in the UK have been deported and detained in error.
It is an absolute disgrace that the Home Office has refused to provide such information.
Amber Rudd needs to sort out this mess as a matter of great urgency.
All outstanding Windrush cases must be resolved. And we demand to know how many people have been wrongly deported.
This country owes the Windrush generation a great deal.
Until this scandal is sorted out, how can anyone have confidence in Britain’s immigration system?
