The Home Office is using minor mistakes to revoke people’s Indefinite Leave to Remain after it emerged that it isn’t just the Windrush generation being targeted by petty rules but also skilled migrants, writes Sabirina Mohamed.

North Croydon MP Steve  Reed has been dealing with two cases of local constituents from Pakistan and Zimbabwe, who have lived in this country for over 10 years and have Indefinite Leave to Remain but are facing having this revoked and being deported after making minor tax returns errors.

These said the MP ‘anyone can make’ and were errors ‘previously corrected and approved by HMRC’. 

The Highly Skilled Migrants support group reports that the Home Office is refusing large numbers of applications of ILR under paragraph 322, especially subsection (5), over minor and non-criminal tax issues. 

The politician believes that the Home Office is taking a “too mechanistic an approach to those who need to come to the Home Office to get their citizenship approved” and has set up group of 20 MPs and member of the House of Lords in  ‘getting the hostile environment policy scrapped’.

As an MP for a constituency with one of the highest Caribbean populations and neighbouring the  headquarters of the UK Immigration and Visas in Lunar House, in Croydon, he is in a prime position to deal with cases related to the Windrush scandal, many of which he has seen in his own constituency. 

These latest cases show a much bigger crisis and how much more desperate the government is appearing in cutting down and reaching immigration targets in the post-Brexit era.

Croydon council held an event last month led by Councillor Patsy Cummings which gave residents the chance to understand more about the scandal that concerns the immigration status of UK residents and what is being done to combat it.  Following the success of the event the council plans to hold an annual commemorative Windrush Day.

Read next month’s Youth edition for Sabirina’s full interview with Steve Reed.

*Our picture shows: Grime artists Marci Phonix latest track Liberties deals head on with the UK’s ‘hostile environment’ that the Windrush scandal sums up.