KINGSTON, Jamaica — Only 13 of the 91 Windrush victims who applied for aid have been granted emergency support by the UK government by the end of April, a year after the government apologised for its “appalling” mistake in classifying thousands of legal UK residents as illegal immigrants.
According to London based newspaper, the Guardian, many of those affected were pushed into destitution because of the combined effect of being forced out of their jobs, and being told they were ineligible for benefits and healthcare.
Even though the UK government agreed to launch a hardship fund at the end of last year, many victims are said to be facing eviction, and visits from bailiffs.
Over 6,400 have been given documents confirming that they are living in the UK legally, of whom 4,200 have been granted British citizenship, according to the latest update of the work of the Commonwealth Citizens Taskforce, the Guardian reported.
Due to officials wrongfully misinforming the Home Office that Windrush generation people were in the UK illegally, a number of people lost their benefits or driving licences, and letters were sent to their employers advising them to conduct a “right to work” check.
The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is said to have written another 46 letters of apology to those wrongly sanctioned as a result of this data-sharing exercise.
Most of those people are probably dead by now! This is terrible! They are ready to right their wrongs now when most likely MOST of the people are dead by now! SMDH
HMT Empire Windrush, originally MV Monte Rosa, was a passenger liner and cruise ship launched in Germany in 1930. She was operated as a German cruise ship under the name Monte Rosa in the 1930s, and as a German navy troopship during World War II. At the end of the war, she was acquired by the United Kingdom Government as a prize of war and renamed the Empire Windrush. In British service, she continued to be used as a troopship until March 1954, when the vessel caught fire and sank in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of four crew.
Empire Windrush brought one of the first large groups of postwar West Indian immigrants to the United Kingdom, carrying 1,027 passengers and two stowaways on a voyage from Jamaica to London in 1948. Of these, 802 passengers gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the Caribbean of whom 693 intended to settle in the United Kingdom.British Caribbean people who came to the United Kingdom in the period after World War II are sometimes referred to as the Windrush generation.
West Indian immigrants
Main article: Windrush generation
In 1948, Empire Windrush, which was en route from Australia to England via the Atlantic, docked in Kingston, Jamaica, to pick up servicemen who were on leave. The British Nationality Act 1948, giving the status of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC status) to all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony, was going through parliament, and some Caribbean migrants decided to embark “ahead of the game”. Prior to 1962, the UK had no immigration control for CUKCs, who could settle indefinitely in the UK without restrictions. The ship was far from full, and so an opportunistic advertisement was placed in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship for anybody who wanted to come and work in the UK. Many former servicemen took this opportunity to return to Britain with the hopes of finding better employment including in some cases rejoining the RAF; others decided to make the journey just to see what the ‘mother country’ was like.One passenger later recalled that demand for tickets far exceeded the supply and there was a long queue to obtain one.
The ship docked at the Port of Tilbury, near London, on 21 June 1948,[21][22] and the 1,027 passengers began disembarking the next day. A commonly given figure for the number of West Indian immigrants on board is 492,[2][22] based understandably on news reports in the media at the time, which variously announced that “more than 400”, “430” or “500” Jamaican men had arrived in Britain.[23][24][25] However, the ship’s records, kept in the United Kingdom National Archives, indicate conclusively that 802 passengers gave their last place of residence as a country in the Caribbean.[1]
The ship also carried 66 people whose last country of residence was Mexico – they were a group of Polish people who had travelled from Siberia via India and the Pacific, and who had been granted permission to settle in the United Kingdom under the terms of the Polish Resettlement Act 1947.[1][2][26][27] They had been among a group of Polish people who had been living in Mexico since 1943,[26] and the Empire Windrush had called at Tampico, Mexico, in order to pick them up.[1]
Of the other passengers, 119 were from England and 40 from other parts of the world.
The disembarkation of Empire Windrush’s passengers was a notable news event, and was covered by newspaper reporters and by Pathé News newsreel cameras. The name Windrush as a result come to be used as shorthand for West Indian migration, and by extension for the beginning of modern British multiracial society.
The arrival of the ship immediately prompted complaints from some members of parliament, but the first legislation controlling immigration was not passed until 1962. Among the passengers was Sam Beaver King, who went on to help found the Notting Hill Carnival and who became the first black Mayor of Southwark. There were also the calypso musicians Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner, Lord Woodbine and Mona Baptiste. One of the stowaways was Evelyn Wauchope, a 39-year-old dressmaker. She was discovered seven days out of Kingston. A whip-round was organised on board ship, raising £50 – enough for the fare and £4 pocket money for her. Nancy Cunard, heiress to the Cunard shipping fortune, who was on her way back from Trinidad, “took a fancy to her” and “intended looking after her”.
Those who had not already arranged accommodation were temporarily housed in the Clapham South deep shelter in south-west London, less than a mile away from the Coldharbour Lane Employment Exchange in Brixton, where some of the arrivals sought work. The stowaways served brief prison sentences, but were eligible to remain in the United Kingdom on their release.
Many of Empire Windrush’s passengers only intended to stay for a few years. Although a number did return the majority remained to settle permanently. Those born in the West Indies who settled in the UK in this migration movement over the following years are now typically referred to as the “Windrush Generation”.