Government threatening UK residents with deportation on charter flight to Jamaica, despite Windrush assurances

‘I have no one there, I have nowhere to go, I would be on the streets,’ grandmother due to be deported tells The Independent

UK residents are being threatened with deportation on a charter flight to Jamaica despite the government’s repeated assurances over the Windrush scandal.

A 63-year-old grandmother who has been held in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre for nine months is among those told she will be put on the plane alongside an unknown number of fellow deportees.

Yvonne Smith, who has been diagnosed with diabetes since her arrival at the notorious facility, had lived in Birmingham while caring for her 92-year-old father.

He arrived in 1957 as one of thousands of Windrush migrants, but Ms Smith moved to Britain two decades ago after her grandmother died in Jamaica.

“I have no one there, I have nowhere to go, I would be on the streets,” she told The Independent from inside Yarl’s Wood, where detainees have recently been on hunger strike over their treatment.

“I have no family there, my dad is here, my siblings are here, my mum is dead.

“I have four grandchildren of my own, two sisters and four brothers, but the government says I have ‘no ties’.”

Ms Smith said she had been caring for her 92-year-old father, who now faces being taken into NHS care against his wishes, and “just cries” every time she speaks to him on the phone.

On the day Theresa May issued a formal apology to Caribbean leaders on the treatment of the Windrush migrants, Ms Smith was sent a letter from the Home Office announcing she “has no basis to remain in the United Kingdom”.

It said she was “to be removed on a specially chartered flight to Jamaica” code-named PVT070 at any time from 22 April, but The Independent understands the government will not be chartering a flight in May.

Another Jamaican woman, 58-year-old Yvonne Williams, was served with the same notice before being abruptly freed from Yarl’s Wood on Friday.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said the planned flight showed why the Windrush generation feel unable to trust the government’s promises.

“So much for all the assurances and the apologies from the prime minister and the home secretary,” she added.

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, called for a wider review of “hostile environment” immigration policies and for the rights of Windrush citizens to be guaranteed in law.

“Warm words from ministers are not enough. We need legislative guarantees,” he told The Independent.

“I have long been of the view that the Home Office should cease the inhumane practice of deportation charter flights. In the context of the Windrush crisis, surely the time has come for the Home Office to put an end to these flights. The public would be horrified if they knew the reality of this process.”

Campaigners said the planned deportation flight “beggared belief” after Ms May formally apologised for the treatment of Caribbean families who were welcomed to the UK following the Second World War.

The prime minister said the “vast majority of long-term [Commonwealth] residents who arrived later” than 1973 have the right to stay in Britain, adding: “I don’t want anybody to be in any doubt about their right to remain here in the United Kingdom.”

Ms May claimed that people would not be “left out of pocket” while they establish their credentials to meet new government rules, but Ms Smith said she has already spent more than £10,000 on legal fees.

Amber Rudd has also apologised and claimed she was unaware of specific removal targets, but a letter published by the Guardian on Sunday showed she personally pledged to increase enforced removals by 10 per cent.

In a private letter sent to Downing Street in January 2017, the home secretary said she wanted to demonstrate that Britain’s immigration system has “teeth”.

“If people do not comply on their own we will enforce their return, including through arresting and detaining them,” it continued.

“That is why I will be refocusing immigration enforcement’s work to concentrate on enforced removals. In particular I will be reallocating £10m with the aim of increasing the number of enforced removals by more than 10 per cent over the next few years: something I believe is ambitious, but deliverable.”

As calls mounted for Ms Rudd to resign, Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis claimed the figure was merely an “ambition” and she remained unaware of specific local targets.

Ms Smith accused both the home secretary and the prime minister of attempting a “cover-up”.

“They knew what they were doing, they’re just trying to cover it up,” she added. “Now everything has come out they’re trying to apologise but it doesn’t work.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who is to be recalled to give evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Committee (PA)

Karen Doyle, national organiser for the Movement for Justice, said the immigrant rights and anti-racist organisation was working on making a submission to the European Court of Human Rights over her case.

“Our argument is that the definition the government is working to on Windrush migrants could be widened and the only way that can happen is a full amnesty,” she added.

“Notifying people of the charter flight now does seem absolutely crazy, it beggars belief.”

The Black Activists Rising Against Cuts group is planning a protest on Tuesday and has started an online petition to stop the “astonishing” flight going ahead.

“We oppose such mass deportations and until the government has set out a clear policy on who from Commonwealth countries are protected, they should not be authorising charter flights,” it said.

The flights have long been the subject of controversy, with the death of Angolan man Jimmy Mubenga who was fatally restrained on a flight from Heathrow sparking the first national review of practices.

In a report published last year, the Independent Monitoring Board Charter Flight Monitoring Team said the treatment of some migrants “fell short” of humane standards.

A flight that took 42 people to Jamaica sparked concern about the use of force and restraint, with almost two thirds of detainees held in waist restraint belts.

Monitors revealed that detainees had been taken out of immigration removal centres in the dead of night and held on coaches for up to seven-and-a-half hours, before being handed a booklet entitled “Coming Home”.

The Home Office declined to comment on the charter flight but responded to MPs’ calls for laws protecting the Windrush generation’s rights by saying they could be guaranteed under existing immigration legislation.

Update: Ms Smith was released from Yarl's Wood without explanation on Monday and has returned to her family in Birmingham. The removal order has not been lifted.