On 22 June 1948, the Empire Windrush docked at the Port of Tilbury on the Thames, carrying with it 492 Caribbean migrants. That year, parliament gave citizenship status to all British colonial subjects, and the Windrush marked the beginning of a wave of migration from the Commonwealth. The images of the young men and women standing on deck, waving at the cameras in their Sunday best, have become a symbol of the desire of many to come to Britain to seek a new and better life.
But today, 70 years later, thousands of the Windrush children are having their lives torn apart. They’re facing deportation, detention, forced joblessness, the rescinding of benefits and life-or-death medical treatment, as a result of the callous and careless policies of the British government, the ‘hostile environment’ approach to migration that PM Theresa May introduced while home secretary. They’ve been betrayed by the nation they chose to make their home in the face of tough times and racist hostility.
In the run-up to this week’s Commonwealth summit, the Guardian has been publishing some of their stories. Michael Braithwaite, a 66-year-old special-needs teacher, has been here since he was nine, but lost his job last year when he was deemed an illegal immigrant. Sixty-one-year-old Paulette Wilson ended up in Yarl’s Wood detention centre for a week, and was set to be flown to Jamaica, which she hadn’t visited for half a century, until her MP intervened at the last minute. Albert Thompson, a Londoner now for 44 years, has been refused free NHS care. He has prostate cancer.
These are people who have worked, paid their way, had children and grandchildren. But now they’re being shaken down by the Home Office, and even having their lives put at risk, on the basis of bureaucratic technicalities. In 1971, Commonwealth migrants were given indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and so many of them have never formally naturalised or applied for a British passport. But new legislation requires all migrants to provide documents in order to work, rent or access benefits, as border control has been outsourced to bosses, landlords and doctors.
The undocumented Windrush children are being treated worse than criminals. After settling down in Britain completely legally they are being asked to jump through ludicrous bureaucratic hoops in order to prove they have a right to be here. The Home Office’s guidance asks applicants for multiple documents for each year in which they’ve been living in Britain. Where they have difficulty gathering this together, as anyone who has been here for decades would, the government suggests they seek legal advice, which is prohibitively expensive for most.