Windrush row over deportation of criminals to Jamaica
19th February 2020
THE government says it supports its decision to deport a group of people to Jamaica - the first such flight since the Windrush scandal.
The people on the flight included 29 “serious foreign criminals” including a murderer and a rapist, the Home office said.
But it is also understood several of the group include individuals who have only served time for minor drugs offences.
Campaigners insist some of the immigrants being deported have been unfairly targeted.
A few of the immigrants who were to be flown back to Jamaica - the land of their birth - have been granted a last minute reprieve, a lawyer told the BBC.
Campaigners claim the governments “hostile environment” immigration policy, which was started under Teresa May’s tenure as Home Secretary, is to blame for the deportations and that many of the deportees had been living in the UK since childhood.
Those given a reprieve and not immediately being deported are believed to include a man who has applied to remain in the UK under the Windrush Scheme.
The scheme was set up to more fairly assess the cases of those who may have been caught up in the scandal involving wrongful deportations.
The Home Office said the chartered flight had flown to Jamaica and the people on board had committed crimes with a combined prison sentence of more than 150 years.
The individuals on the flight - who numbered more than 30 - included 14 people convicted of drugs offences, six people convicted of a violent crime and one person convicted of dangerous driving.
The Windrush generation is the name for an estimated 500,000 people from Caribbean countries who arrived in the UK between 1948 and 1971.
Many of the immigrants at the time had chosen to move to the UK - as registered British Citizens of the Commonwealth - to join their parents or siblings already here in response to the government's call for foreign labour.
They were granted indefinite leave to remain, but changes to immigration law in 2012 meant many who arrived as children, without their documents, found themselves unable to prove their status.
Some were subsequently held in detention or removed, despite having lived in the UK for decades.
Others lost their jobs and housing, as the Home Office clamped down on their eligibility to live and work in this country.
Campaigner and solicitor Jacqueline McKenzie said: “We are shocked that the government, not having received the conclusions of the Windrush Lessons Learnt Review, should resume these mass deportation flights which were stayed in light of the Windrush Scandal.”
