Nearly 93 Indians have been caught up in United Kingdom’s ‘Windrush’ immigration scandal as the UK government yesterday released latest figures of Commonwealth nationals involved in the row over their citizenship rights.
The actual scale of Indians affected by the Windrush scandal come out as 93 Indian nationals have been rendered with documentation to formalize their rights to live and work in the UK by an emergency task force established by the UK Home Office to deal with cases of migrants who arrived in the UK earlier immigration rules became more rigorous in 1973.
This is the first instance where a picture has emerged for the number of Indians affected, while the 2,125 migrants cases resolved by the task force were Caribbean nationals.
“We have made it clear that it is not acceptable that those of the Windrush generation have been impacted negatively, and this government has apologized,” UK immigration minister Caroline Nokes said in the House of Commons.
“It is an important point that we must provide reassurance and ensure that as many people as possible make contact with the task force. That is why we have been working closely with communities to make sure it is very clear that the task force has an attitude of helping individuals,” she said.
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The outrage emerged as Jamaicans of UK-based faced involuntary deportations due to deficiency of grounds that they had legal right to be in Britain.
“The Windrush generation refers to citizens of former British colonies who arrived before 1973 when the rights of such Commonwealth citizens to live and work in Britain were substantially curtailed. While a large proportion of them was of Jamaican/Caribbean descent, they also included Indians and other South Asians,” said Rob McNeil, Deputy Director of the Migration Observatory.
Indians formed the third-largest group, after countries like Jamaica with 1,014 and Barbados with 207. The others include Grenada (88), Trinidad and Tobago (85), and 638 were from countries categorized as ‘Others’.
The group referred to as the ‘Windrush generation’ links to a ship called ‘Windrush’ which brought Jamaican workers to UK shores in 1948. The scandal comes forth as galore who arrived as children around that time period have been troubled to access state services or even vulnerable with exile since they did not possess any records to prove they arrived before 1973.
By Sowmya
