Category Archives: Windrush scandal

Appeal court gives 11th-hour reprieve to detainees due to be sent to Jamaica

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Court of appeal orders Home Office not to remove anyone scheduled to be deported from two detention centres on 6.30am flight

A group of about 50 people due to be deported to Jamaica on Tuesday morning won a last-minute reprieve on Monday night following an emergency ruling by the court of appeal.

The court ordered the Home Office not to remove anyone scheduled to be deported from two detention centres near Heathrow on the 6.30am flight to Jamaica – “unless satisfied [they] had access to a functioning, non-O2 sim card on or before 3 February”.

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From the man with a three-week erection to the UK’s last MEPs: what happened next?

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Plus, an update on the trans man who gave birth, the woman deported to Grenada, and more

Last March, Margaret Simons wrote about the abandoned children of British sex tourists in the Philippines. Brigette Sicat, now 12, was unable to go to school because of ill health, and was living in a leaky shack with a dirt floor and no toilet. Today, thanks partly to the generosity of Guardian readers, Brigette and her family live in decent accommodation, she is a regular attendee at school and her grades are outstanding. The turnaround has been even more dramatic for twins Melanie and Madeline delos Santos – now 19. Reading of Madeline’s ambition to be an architect, a reader is supporting her through university in Angeles City. Human rights law firms in Britain, Griffin Law and Dawson Cornwell, are in the process of confirming the twins’ right to British citizenship; they are also exploring the use of DNA technology to help other children establish parentage, and their rights to child support. Simons and photographer, Dave Tacon plan to visit the children again next May. Their report won a Foreign Press Award last month for best travel and tourism story of the year.

In April, Simon Hattenstone interviewed Freddy McConnell about his quest to conceive and carry his own baby. The film of McConnell’s story, Seahorse, was screened widely. In September, the high court ruled that McConnell cannot be registered as his son’s father. He is appealing the decision and the hearing is expected next year. His young son is thriving.

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Windrush victim forced to sleep in London bin shed

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Roy Harrison, who came to Britain from Jamaica aged six, fighting deportation notice

A man caught in the Windrush scandal has resorted to sleeping in a freezing bin shed because the Home Office has not regularised his status and is trying to deport him.

Roy Harrison, 44, arrived in the UK as a six-year-old. He had been abandoned as a newborn in Jamaica by his mother and left on his grandmother’s doorstep.

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Windrush: the scandal isn’t over – podcast

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Hubert Howard, a prominent Windrush victim, died recently without receiving compensation or a personal apology. Amelia Gentleman discusses his case. Plus: Polly Toynbee on the boldest Labour manifesto for a generation

Hubert Howard died on 12 November, three weeks after finally being granted British citizenship having arrived in London 59 years earlier. Howard spent much of the last two months of his life fighting for citizenship from his intensive care bed in hospital. He was granted it at the end of October when his lawyer informed the Home Office that he was critically ill and highlighted the urgency of his case.

Anushka Asthana talks about Howard’s life with the Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman, who recently met his friend Tyrone and his daughter Maresha and heard them describe the devastating impact his treatment by the Home Office had on his life. Amelia discusses why so many of the Windrush victims are still waiting for compensation and an apology from the government.

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Relief for Windrush sisters as removal threat overturned

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Bumi Thomas, whose sister got citizenship, wins appeal against removal from UK

Two Windrush sisters who describe themselves as inseparable are celebrating after a judge ruled that one of them should not be sent back to Nigeria.

Bumi Thomas, 36, was at risk of removal from the UK and at one point was given 14 days to leave, while her sister Kemi, 38, was not because of their different dates of birth.

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The last of the Windrush arrivals in 1962 – in pictures

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In 1962, the young photographer Howard Grey captured the last of the Windrush immigrants as they disembarked from the boat train at Waterloo station in London. The extraordinary pictures he took, however, were not processed for more than five decades until advances in scanning technology brought the underexposed negatives to life. Here the photographer talks us through some of his favourite images from the three films he exposed.

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Brexit free-movement cutoff plans worse than Windrush, says Abbott

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Senior Labour MP says no-deal Brexit proposal would create chaos for EU citizens in UK

Ending the free movement of people with a no-deal Brexit on 31 October would cause chaos and confusion for EU citizens on a scale that would make the Windrush scandal look like a minor blip, Diane Abbott has said.

The shadow home secretary said Boris Johnson’s policies were taking the country “towards a catastrophe” as 2 million EU citizens resident in Britain had not yet registered for settled status, having been told the deadline was December 2020.

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Windrush scandal continues as Chagos Islanders are pressed to ‘go back’

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British passport holders say they are routinely pressed by council officers to leave the UK

British passport holders from the Chagos Islands are being systematically targeted in a “shameful” attempt to have them removed from the UK, the Observer can reveal.

The revelations expose a fresh dimension of the UK’s hostile environment, showing that the strategy also persecutes passport-holding British citizens of colour.

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We have been forgotten by Boris Johnson, say Britons in Europe

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New PM has pledged to help EU citizens in the UK after Brexit – but not the 1.3 million British folk in the EU

Campaigners for British citizens in Europe say they are being treated as nonentities by Boris Johnson in his race to get Brexit over the line.

They say they have been completely forgotten by the new prime minister, who instead went out of his way to pledge that he would look after EU citizens in the UK in his maiden speech in Downing Street.

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Home Office investigated over English test cheating claims

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National Audit Office acts as MPs warn scandal could be ‘bigger than Windrush’

A government watchdog has launched an investigation into the Home Office’s decision to accuse about 34,000 international students of cheating in English language tests, and will scrutinise the thinking behind the subsequent cancellation or curtailment of their visas.

More than 1,000 students have been removed from the UK as a result of the accusation and hundreds have spent time in detention, but large numbers of students say they were wrongly accused. Over 300 cases are pending in the court of appeal as hundreds attempt to clear their names. MPs have warned that this immigration scandal could be “bigger than Windrush”.

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UK-born baby of parents with right to remain given six-month tourist stamp

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Father Charles Kriel and mother Katharina Viken were returning to UK from holiday in Florida

A baby born in the UK to two parents who have indefinite leave to remain in Britain has been denied the right to live in the country in what a human rights lawyer has described as a potentially unlawful move.

Dr Charles Kriel, a US national and special adviser to a parliamentary select committee, said he was returning to the UK from a holiday in Florida with his fiancee, Katharina Viken, and their baby daughter was denied entry. The child was eventually given a six-month tourist stamp to enter the country.

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Last-minute legal moves save detainees from deportation flight to Jamaica

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Campaigners raise concerns about ‘ad hoc reprieves’ as 29 offenders are deported

Last-minute legal interventions have led to a number of detainees being removed from a deportation flight to Jamaica, but the Home Office said 29 others were onboard the chartered plane.

More than 50 foreign national offenders who were being held in detention centres were reported to be due to be placed on the flight. But many of them were able to have their removal cancelled after their lawyers took action.

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EU citizen registration in UK could become ‘new Windrush’, say migration experts

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Critics warn many could be left without legal status to stay if settlement scheme fails

Migration experts have warned that the post-Brexit system for registering EU citizens living in the UK could become a new “Windrush scandal” as the scheme to register an estimated 3.5 million EU citizens living in the UK begins.

From Monday, the third phase of testing will open to EU residents in the UK, who will be able to register for the new post-Brexit “settled status”. The Home Office is extending its live trial to all EU citizens who hold a valid passport and any non-EU citizen family members who hold a valid biometric residence card.

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