The British government has apologised for its treatment of Britons of Caribbean origin, which were wrongly detained or deported for being illegal immigrants, after the publication of a devastating official report.
What is the scandal?
- The Windrush scandal is a 2018 British political scandal concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and, in at least 83 cases wrongly deported from the UK.
- Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries as members of the “Windrush generation”.
- As well as those who were wrongly deported, an unknown number were wrongly detained, lost their jobs or homes, or were denied benefits or medical care to which they were entitled.
- A number of long-term UK residents were wrongly refused re-entry to the UK, and a larger number were threatened with immediate deportation by the Home Office.
- The scandal also prompted a wider debate about British immigration policy and Home Office practice.
Windrush Generation
- The Windrush generation is named after one of the many vessels that ferried some half a million people from the Caribbean islands to the U.K. in the late 1940s.
- The “Empire Windrush” ship had brought one of the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948.
- The generation refers to migrants from the Caribbean Commonwealth who had come to the U.K. at a time when they had the right to remain indefinitely in Britain but had had their rights questioned under a toughened immigration regime.
