British government apologises for treatment of 'Windrush generation' of migrants

LONDON: Britain's interior minister Amber Rudd on Monday apologised to thousands of British residents who arrived from the Caribbean decades ago and are now being denied basic rights after being incorrectly identified as illegal immigrants.

More than 140 members of parliament have signed a letter to the prime minister calling on her to resolve an anomaly that means many people who arrived in Britain as children between 1948 and 1971 are being denied health services, prevented from working and in some cases threatened with deportation.

"I do not want of any of the Commonwealth citizens who are here legally to be impacted in the way they have and, frankly, some of the way they have been treated has been wrong, has been appalling, and I am sorry," Rudd told parliament.

"That is why I setting up a new area in my department to ensure that we have a completely new approach to how their situation is regularised."