The UK’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid issued an apology to 18 people who were deported back to the Caribbean or detained because they could not produce documents to prove their rights to live in the United Kingdom.
“The experiences faced by some members of the Windrush generation are completely unacceptable and I am committed to righting the wrongs of the past,” Javid said in a statement. “I would like to personally apologize to those identified in our review and am committed to providing them with the support and compensation they deserve. We must do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again–which is why I have asked an independent adviser to look at what lessons we can learn from Windrush.”
The apology came after a protracted analysis of almost 11,800 immigration cases. The number of deported citizens was initially thought to be almost six times higher at 83 but the UK will only apologized to 18, 11 of which were deported and seven were detained but later released. The Home Office said that it has been in contact with 14 of the 18 people and were trying to contact the others.
Windrush immigrants are a group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in Great Britain from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands more than five decades ago and were granted indefinite leave to remain by the UK government after World War II due to a post-war labor shortage.
