- Target:
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, British High Commission and Prime Minister
- Region:
- Jamaica
With the recent Windrush scandal, where persons from 12 Caribbean nations, who went to the United Kingdom between the years of 1948-1971 and were referred to as the “Windrush generation”, were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threated deportation and wrongly deported from the United Kingdom by the British Prime Minister, Theresa May.
The British High Commission in Kingston has compared a list of names of potential Windrush victims with lists held by staff at the Jamaican foreign ministry, and there are reportedly 13 cases where the British Government believed those involved were wrongly deported’ eight were contacted, two remain untraced and three are believed to have died before officials were able to reverse the wrongful removals. However, based on a newspaper article written by Amelia Gentleman for The Guardian, a deportee himself believed that 63 members of the Windrush generation could have been wrongly removed, with 32 of them labelled as foreign national offenders.
For most of the individuals in the Windrush generation, they went with a family member from a very tender age and do not know any other life and is the life that they have become accustomed to over the years; and it is unfair that after their contribution to the British economy that they are deported.
The Government of Jamaica should defend the rights of the Jamaican nationals or put policies in place with these countries which host these nationals, whereby they can only be deported of denied legal rights if it is justified by the Jamaican government – Ministry of Foreign Affairs, British High Commission or the Jamaican High Commission in London, that they are within the country illegally.
Jamaicans are always seeking a way to make a living and survive, which is why they usually seek citizenship in another country, and they should be allowed to do so once they have met the requirements which would be:
i. A law abiding citizen,
ii. No criminal record in the country,
iii. Are legally in the country or has legal, valid documentation, and
iv. Have been in the country for 5 or more years and has applied for naturalisation as a British Citizen (along with points i-iii).
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The Stand By Your People petition to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, British High Commission and Prime Minister was written by Kerena Brown and is in the category International Affairs at GoPetition.