Since the Windrush scandal broke, stories have emerged of people from other Commonwealth countries battling to prove their right to remain in the UK

As controversy over the government’s “hostile environment” policy rumbles on in the wake of the Windrush scandal, more stories are emerging – this time of people from other Commonwealth countries beyond the Caribbean who have been affected despite living and working in the UK for decades.

Paul Sinodhinos has lived in the UK for 56 years. The 77-year-old arrived from Canada in 1962 having “grown up reading English books” and decided to stay.

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He has always held a Canadian passport, but pays taxes in the UK, has a national insurance number, an NHS number, is on the electoral register and votes in the UK, owns property and has a civil partner of eight years, Spencer Butler, a British citizen, with whom he lives in Dorset. “Britain is my home,” he told the Guardian.

In March 2016, he received his most recent Canadian passport and decided to apply for a “right of abode” certificate, which superseded the old stamp of entitlement to “enter the UK for an indefinite period”. But he was refused.

Between 1972 and 1998, the passports Sinodhinos held had the stamp of entitlement. After his mother died in 1995, he had no need to travel outside the UK and decided not to reapply for the stamp until 2016, when it was refused. He is now too afraid to visit his sister in Canada, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

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Fighting back tears, Sinodhinos said he had been left “deeply upset” by the experience. “I am now left feeling I should not travel outside the UK in case I am denied entry on my return or – worse – that if I appeal the decision and make a stand for the right to live here that I was granted through the stamp in most of my passports, that I shall be incarcerated in a detention centre.”

Butler, his partner, described Sinodhinos as one of the kindest people he knew and said he was enraged by the situation. “When the Home Office refused Paul’s application, they informed him that he could seek advice from another of their departments, if he paid an enormous fee,” Butler, 69, said. “It’s a racket.”

The couple have written to their constituency MP, Oliver Letwin, but are yet to receive a response.

Azad Miah: ‘I felt like an utter failure’



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Azad Miah: ‘I felt like an utter failure.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

It was only when Azad Miah tried to organise his dying wife’s burial abroad that he discovered that if he travelled, he would not be able to return to the UK because he did not have the correct paperwork. Miah’s wife developed cancer four years ago at just 31 and her last wish was to be buried in Bangladesh near her mother.



“I went to the travel agent to sort it out, but when I showed them my Bangladeshi passport, they said that if I left, I might not be able to return,” he explains. “I had to come home and tell my wife, who had just a few days left to live. She was in tears … I felt like an utter failure.”

The 52-year-old – who arrived in Britain with his family aged six in 1972 – did not have the correct documentation in his passport. His previous passport, which has now expired, was stamped with the “no time limit stamp”, but due to Home Office changes in 2014, he was told he needed a biometric residence permit (BRP).

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Like those of the Windrush generation, Miah came from a Commonwealth country, although it was east Pakistan (now Bangladesh) rather than the Caribbean. He worked and lived in Britain for 46 years before realising that he was not considered a British citizen.

When he realised he could not bury his wife abroad, he says, he was shocked, but it paled into insignificance compared with what he was dealing with.

After his wife’s death, he realised he could no longer work because he did not have a biometric permit. This was despite the fact that he had been working – as a sales director and senior project manager – before his wife became ill in 2014. He gave up his job to look after her when she became unwell.

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Miah’s mother applied for a naturalisation certificate for him in 1982, but when he tried to obtain it he was told that they only had records dating back to 1986.

“For some reason, I was still getting benefits, but obviously I wasn’t allowed to get a job because I didn’t have a permit … I had one branch of government telling me to go to look for work, and another hindering my chances of getting employment. It’s lunacy,” he says.

As soon as Miah heard about the recent Windrush generation stories, he realised his rights and called the Home Office. “Getting it sorted means the stress will go, but I should never have been put through it all in the first place,” he says.

The Home Office said Miah has had indefinite leave to remain for a number of years, but was not currently a British citizen. They said they would encourage him to contact the freephone helpline to discuss his citizenship.