Windrush generation to be granted citizenship papers
Home Secretary attempts to draw line under scandal after calls to resign

The Home Secretary has said the Windrush generation will be granted full citizenship and compensation, as the Government attempts to lay the matter to rest.
Amber Rudd told the Commons that Caribbean immigrants and their families who settled between 1948 and 1971 would have their citizenship application fees waived, would not be required to take an English language or general knowledge test and would receive compensation.
Although they were regarded as British citizens at the time, they did not have the paperwork to prove it.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
While welcoming the news as a “first step toward righting the historic wrongs done to the Windrush generation”, the chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Satbir Singh, said: “By placing yet another sticking plaster over its failures, the Government has said and done nothing to indicate that it is taking the root causes of this crisis seriously.”
Rudd’s U-turn comes after a letter was leaked revealing ministers were aware of risk to the Windrush generation when immigration reforms were made law.
Written in May 2016 by a Home Office minister, the letter “fuelled the row about whether Ms Rudd should resign”, says the Daily Mail.
Yet despite announcing a sweeping package of compensation and new citizenship rights, Rudd has continued to try to deflect blame for the scandal, arguing that “successive governments” introduced measures to combat illegal immigration, reports Sky News.
The Financial Times says her stance “immediately came in for criticism”, with shadow home secretary Diane Abbott insisting the problems facing the Windrush generation were a predicted effect of the 2014 Immigration Act, pushed through by Theresa May.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Trump granting military control of federal border lands could circumvent the law
In the Spotlight The move could allow US troops to detain people crossing the border
By Justin Klawans, The Week US
-
What's at stake in Kilmar Ábrego García's Supreme Court case?
Talking Points A test of Trump's immigration agenda
By Joel Mathis, The Week US
-
Low-cost airline faces backlash after agreeing to operate ICE's deportation flights
The Explainer The flights will begin out of Arizona in May
By Justin Klawans, The Week US
-
IRS chief resigning after ICE deal on taxpayer data
Speed Read Several IRS officials are stepping down after the tax agency is forced to share protected taxpayer records to further Trump's deportation drive
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Supreme Court gives Trump 2 deportation wins
Speed Read The court ruled that the Trump administration could continue to deport Venezuelan migrants
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Free speech: The case of Rumeysa Ozturk
Feature The Turkish student was confronted by masked federal agents and transported in an unmarked vehicle
By The Week US
-
Judge orders US to recall deported migrant
Speed Read The Trump administration has been ordered to retrieve one of the migrants it sent to a prison in El Salvador due to an 'administrative error'
By Peter Weber, The Week US
-
Detentions and hostile treatment: is it safe to visit the US?
The Explainer Spate of interrogations and deportations at US border sparking decline in overseas visitors
By The Week UK