The Tribune

WHILE continuing to concentrate on the complex negotiations about the terms of Britain’s forthcoming departure from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May has been faced recently with a major immigration issue that could damage her politically. Migrants who came to the “mother country” legally from the Caribbean on the ship the Empire Windrush in 1948 have now been treated as illegal immigrants under a “hostile environment” policy initiated during Mrs May’s time as Home Secretary when she was responsible for immigration. This has become known as the Windrush scandal and has caused widespread public concern.

After living and working legally in the UK for decades and with children born there, the Windrush migrants and their families have been suddenly subjected to deportation orders as illegal immigrants. This was precipitated by a hostile policy designed to encourage those living illegally in the UK to leave of their own accord. In seeking to deport the Windrush migrants and their offspring, the British government has ignored their legal status.

Inevitably, under extreme political pressure Mrs May and her ministerial colleagues have apologised and backtracked, but the current Home Secretary felt compelled to resign over the issue. Nonetheless, the matter is worthy of scrutiny since there may be lessons for us in The Bahamas as successive governments have wrestled with the thorny issue of immigration that has caused controversy in varying degrees over many years, not least how to treat long-term migrants from Haiti and their offspring born here.

After the Second World War, Britain invited people from the West Indies to come to help rebuild the nation. The British Nationality Act of 1948 provided for separate citizenship for Commonwealth countries and gave citizens of those countries the legal right as a British subject and then a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies to reside in the UK. The Windrush brought some 500 West Indian migrants to work and settle in Britain and this marked the beginning of so-called New Commonwealth immigration. It meant that citizens of Commonwealth countries were more or less free to enter and stay in the country as they pleased and because of this no official records of the numbers were maintained.

Subsequently, the influx of migrants grew to such an extent there was increased pressure on the Welfare State and public services and there were fresh doubts about Britain’s capacity to absorb greater numbers. This continued until increasing public calls for the introduction of controls resulted in passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 which ended the traditional right to Commonwealth citizens of free entry.

More recently, immigration has become a hot topic in Britain in the context of Brexit and the free movement of people within the EU as one of the requirements of the single market. It would be hard to fault the UK government for seeking to tighten up on illegal immigration from outside the EU, but it is the flawed implementation of a tougher policy that seems to have provoked the controversy. It was clearly unfair, unwise and plain wrong to target the Windrush migrants and their families as part of the government’s new policy, and ministers seem to have been negligent in not curbing overzealous officials.

For many years, successive British governments were inhibited in dealing with immigration by what has been termed a liberal post-colonial guilt complex. Not only were they slow to admit the scale of Commonwealth immigration but they were also reluctant to take positive action to contain it.

Here at home, without any such inhibitions, we have always been robust in our attitude to uncontrolled large-scale immigration. We are faced with large numbers of Haitians on our doorstep who are seeking a better life. So, as a small country, we need to protect ourselves against an unsustainable influx, not least because the flow of refugees and economic migrants northwards will continue unless Haiti can achieve greater stability and a better standard of living for its ten million citizens.

It is good we now have an experienced, able, active and caring minister - with, at the same time, a no-nonsense approach – who is responsible for such a complex and important subject.

It is incumbent on us as a nation to treat immigrants fairly and humanely and to recognise many have a constructive contribution to make, but the law has to be enforced. Recently, there have been a number of immigration issues which have had to be determined by the courts and it must be right in our democracy that such enforcement by officials under the authority and responsibility of ministers is under constant scrutiny.

It is also important to ensure the law is both up-to-date and relevant as well as being appropriate in current circumstances. It is, therefore, encouraging to learn from the minister himself that draft amendments to the Immigration Act are now being reviewed and that legislation is likely to be changed substantially during the coming months.

The changes, we hope, will pass the scrutiny of the courts and be faithful to our constitution, protecting all citizens and those with an unquestionable right to live here.