Home secretary: At least 63 Windrush citizens wrongly removed since 2002

The home secretary today gave the first official estimate of the scale of the scandal which brought down his predecessor.

Sajid Javid said that at least 63 people from the Windrush generation had been wrongfully removed from the UK since 2002, as he gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee.

It is the first time a number has been given in relation to the debacle, which forced Amber Rudd to resign as home secretary last month.

Javid said that the figures were provisional and that he had asked officials to check records.

However, he said he did not yet have data on how many Windrush immigrants had been detained. A number of cases have been detailed in media reports and have been highlighted in parliament by individual lawmakers, but so far there has been no clarity on the scale of wrongful detentions.

The immigrants are named after the Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948.

Although fully entitled to live and work in Britain, an unknown number of Windrush descendants have been wrongly identified as illegal immigrants.

After his appointment at home secretary at the end of April, Javid promise to "do right" by the Windrush generation.

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CityAM

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