Windrush victim refused British citizenship despite wrongful passport confiscation
A former English instructor who was blocked for 25 years from returning to his house in Britain after his passport was wrongly confiscated has been dominated ineligible for British citizenship because of the size of his absence from the UK.
Ken Morgan, 70, described the choice as a “ridiculous catch-22”, and mentioned the only real cause he was absent for such a protracted interval was as a result of he was barred by British officers from travelling to the UK. He has requested a evaluate.
Morgan moved aged 10 from Jamaica to the UK in 1960, earlier than Jamaican independence, travelling on a British passport. He attended college in London and lived and labored within the UK for greater than 30 years till 1994 when he travelled to a relative’s funeral in Jamaica. On his manner again to London he was stopped at check-in and his passport was confiscated.
He was unable to steer officers on the British High Commission that they’d made a mistake, and he remained caught in Jamaica for 1 / 4 of a century till the Windrush scandal broke, when British diplomats referred to as him out of the blue to supply him a brief visa to permit him to journey again to the UK. He utilized for British citizenship in 2018, throughout his first go to home.
His software was rejected, after a delay of just about two years, on the grounds that he had been overseas on a date 5 years earlier than he made the applying (at a time when he was barred from being within the UK due to the choice to confiscate his passport), and that he had spent greater than 450 days overseas throughout the software interval (a interval when he was not allowed to be within the UK).
“I am sorry to tell you that you do not meet the requirements for citizenship and you do not have an entitlement to the right of abode in the United Kingdom,” the choice letter states.
Morgan mentioned he was horrified by the choice. “How can you prevent someone from returning, then turn their application down and tell them: you were not in the country and therefore are not eligible? Hello? Hello? Why was I not in the country? It makes no sense,” Morgan mentioned, by phone from Jamaica. He mentioned he had grow to be sceptical about repeated Home Office commitments to righting the wrongs skilled by the Windrush technology. “The promised change of culture hasn’t happened. When we take the limelight away from the Home Office, they revert back to their old ways.”
After being barred from returning to the UK, Morgan was destitute on the streets of Kingston for some time, earlier than managing to start out a small enterprise, and retraining as a graphic designer. He ended up working for the University of West Indies, and notes that he “survived the odds and flourished”. He is however anxious to safe his British citizenship.
Morgan’s lawyer, Irène Nembhard from Birnberg Peirce, mentioned the house secretary had the suitable to train discretion in distinctive circumstances. “There is no recognition that the sole reason for Mr Morgan being unable to meet the requirements set, was due to the unlawful act of the British official in the High Commission in Jamaica, confiscating his valid British passport,” she states within the letter requesting a evaluate.
“It is deeply disturbing that a taskforce precisely set up to right the wrongs done to Windrushers could make such a fundamental error. Neither Ken nor his lawyers can now have any confidence in statements by a succession of home secretaries that they are committed to providing justice for those who have been so severely injured by decades of hostile policies implemented by the Home Office,” she mentioned.
A Home Office spokesperson mentioned: “An independent review, which was requested last month into Mr Morgan’s case, is ongoing. All citizenship applications are considered on their own merits in line with the requirements set out in nationality legislation.”
