Sajid Javid, the home secretary, has announced new legislation to allow Windrush citizens to have their British citizenship applications processed faster and free of charge – but the scheme was met with criticism over a lack of right to appeal.
Delivering the news in a written statement to the Commons, Javid said the scheme would allow Windrush citizens to apply to become British citizens more easily. It will come into force on Wednesday.
Charities and opposition MPs welcomed the news but criticised the fact Windrush citizens have no right to appeal if they are rejected under the scheme.
Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, said: “I am extremely concerned that the Home Office has decided to rule out any appeals or administrative reviews for decisions in Windrush cases … Given the history of Home Office decision-making on this, how can the home secretary expect people to trust the Home Office to make absolutely no mistakes?”
Concern was also raised about Javid’s other announcement, in which he gave details of an internal review looking into how the Windrush scandal happened.
Immigration charities criticised the fact that the review would not look at the wider implications of the hostile environment policy.
Chai Patel, legal policy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said: “What we are worried by – and the Home Office do not appear to have understood – is the fact that we know the consequences of the hostile environment policy, which led to the Windrush scandal. It is clear the Home Office is taking the same approach it took to Windrush six months ago – to ignore all of the individuals who are not Windrush and hope it goes away.
“They are not dealing with the problem the Home Office has in policy and how it operates internally. If the review does not look at that then it is pointless. There needs to be full inquiry into the work of the Home Office and the hostile environment.”
The Labour MP David Lammy said the idea of an internal review was “absolutely ridiculous”. He said: “It cannot be the Home Office marking their own homework when it was the Home Office that caused this crisis, and that is why I am calling for a public inquiry.”
What is the Windrush deportation crisis?
Who are the Windrush generation?
They are people who arrived in the UK after the second world war from Caribbean countries at the invitation of the British government. The first group arrived on the ship MV Empire Windrush in June 1948.
What happened to them?
An estimated 50,000 people faced the risk of deportation if they had never formalised their residency status and did not have the required documentation to prove it.
Why now?
It stems from a policy, set out by Theresa May when she was home secretary, to make the UK ‘a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants’. It requires employers, NHS staff, private landlords and other bodies to demand evidence of people’s citizenship or immigration status.
Why do they not have the correct paperwork and status?
Some children, often travelling on their parents’ passports, were never formally naturalised and many moved to the UK before the countries in which they were born became independent, so they assumed they were British. In some cases, they did not apply for passports. The Home Office did not keep a record of people entering the country and granted leave to remain, which was conferred on anyone living continuously in the country since before 1 January 1973.
What is the government doing to resolve the problem?
A new Home Office team was set up to ensure Commonwealth-born long-term UK residents would no longer find themselves classified as being in the UK illegally. But a month after one minister promised the cases would be resolved within two weeks, many remain destitute.
Was this helpful?
Lammy also said more action was needed to support those of the Windrush generation who had been left financially destitute.
Javid said the review would look at how members of the Windrush generation came to be entangled in measures designed for illegal immigrants, why it was not spotted sooner and whether the right corrective measures were now in place.
He said the legislation meant the government could start processing citizenship applications for the Windrush generation free of charge. There would also be free citizenship applications for children of the Windrush generation who joined their parents in the UK before they turned 18.
Those applying for citizenship under the scheme will need to meet the good character requirements in place for all British citizenship applications but will not need to take the knowledge of language and life in the UK test or attend a citizenship ceremony.
The government said the scheme would also cover members of the Windrush generation who were looking to return to the UK having spent recent years back in their home countries.
Javid confirmed that non-Commonwealth citizens who settled in the UK before 1973 and people who arrived between 1973 and 1988 who had an existing right to be in the UK were not expected to pay for the documentation to prove their indefinite leave to remain.
The news comes as Hugh Ind, who was director-general of immigration enforcement, left his role following the Windrush scandal.
Ind repeated Amber Rudd’s incorrect assertion that the Home Office did not use deportation targets when he appeared alongside the then home secretary at the home affairs select committee. Rudd ultimately stepped down from the position.
Ind is being moved to work at the Cabinet Office, where he will take forward the public sector apprenticeships strategy. Tyson Hepple, currently the director of asylum and protection at UK Visas and Immigration, will take up Ind’s immigration enforcement role in June.
