28 November 2017

Paulette Wilson, who has lived in the UK for more than half a century, speaks to the Guardian about her treatment at the hands of the Home Office. The government had threatened to send her to Jamaica – a country she has not seen since she left at the age of 10.

1 December

Anthony Bryan becomes the second of the Windrush generation facing deportation under Theresa May’s hostile environment policy to tell his story to the Guardian. Bryan’s deportation to Jamaica was only cancelled at the last moment after a legal intervention.

Anthony Bryan had not visited Jamaica since he was eight years old. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

11 January 2018

The government relents in Wilson’s case, finally giving her official leave to remain in the UK. During more than 50 years in the UK, Wilson had served food to MPs as a cook in the House of Commons and raised a family, but the Home Office did not initially believe she was in the country legally.

The 12 January front page reports on Paulette Wilson’s reprieve. Photograph: The Guardian

21 February

Renford McIntyre, a former NHS driver who arrived in the UK in 1968, tells the Guardian how he had been left homeless after being told he was not allowed to work and not eligible for any government support.

22 February

The issue begins to snowball, as senior Caribbean diplomats urge the Home Office to adopt a “more compassionate” approach towards retirement-age Commonwealth citizens.

10 March

There is widespread outrage as it emerges that a man who has lived in London for 44 years is told to produce a British passport or face a £54,000 bill for cancer treatment – forcing him to go without. Official suspicion about his immigration status also led to Albert Thompson – not his real name – being evicted and spending three weeks homeless.

22 March

May refuses to intervene in Thompson’s case, having promised to do so at prime ministers’ questions. She says the decision lies with the hospital.

Sylvester Marshall (who previously used the alias Albert Thompson). Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

26 March – 9 April

Three similar cases emerge: those of Sarah O’Connor, Elwaldo Romeo and Michael Braithwaite, who have each lived in the UK for more than 50 years.

12 April

International anger at Britain’s treatment of the Windrush generation grows as Caribbean diplomats condemn the Home Office.

People from the West Indies arrive in Southampton in 1956. Photograph: Haywood Magee/Getty Images

13 April

Four Church of England bishops join a call for an immigration amnesty for those people who moved to the UK from the Caribbean decades ago.



15 April

Downing Street refuses a formal diplomatic request to discuss the issue at a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government.

16 April

More than 140 MPs from all parties sign a letter to the prime minister demanding she find a “swift resolution of this growing crisis”. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, apologises for the “appalling” treatment of Windrush citizens and announces the creation of a team dedicated to ensuring no more Windrush-era citizens are classified as illegal immigrants. She promises none of them will be deported because of lack of paperwork.

The Guardian’s 17 April front page. Photograph: The Guardian

17 April

May apologises to the 12 Caribbean heads of government for the treatment of Windrush citizens and promises that no one will be deported. An ex-staffer reveals that in 2010 the Home Office destroyed thousands of landing card slips recording Windrush immigrants’ UK arrival dates.

22 April

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, accuses May of being personally responsible for the Windrush controversy by setting a deliberately unreachable bar with her “hostile environment” immigration policies.

23 April

Rudd pledges that the Windrush generation will be granted British citizenship as the government attempts to draw a line under the scandal by describing her apology as “just the first step”. The home secretary says the Home Office will waive citizenship fees for the Windrush generation and their families and any charges for returning to the UK for those who had retired to their countries of origin after making their lives here. It will also scrap language and British knowledge tests.

Amber Rudd arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting on 24 April. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

25 April

Rudd rejects claims that the Home Office had targets for the removal of illegal immigrants and refuses to identify May’s “hostile environment” strategy as a major factor in the scandal. She tells the home affairs select committee it was “disappointing no previous governments saw this coming”.

26 April

Rudd faces fresh calls to resign after she admits the Home Office set targets for deportations. She dismisses calls for her resignation, arguing that she is the person best placed to fix the Home Office’s problems. “I have never agreed there should be specific removal targets and I would never support a policy that puts targets ahead of people,” she says. “These were not published targets against which performance was assessed. But they were used inappropriately.”

A protest in London in support of the Windrush generation. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Images

27 April

A former borders and immigration chief says it was “disingenuous” for Home Office ministers to suggest they did not know targets existed for removing people from Britain.

Shortly after, a secret memo prepared for Rudd and other senior Home Office ministers is leaked to the Guardian. It says the department has set “a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18” and boasts that “we have exceeded our target of assisted returns”. Rudd tweets:

2/4 I wasn't aware of specific removal targets. I accept I should have been and I'm sorry that I wasn't. — Amber Rudd MP (@AmberRuddHR) April 27, 2018

29 April

The Guardian publishes the full private letter from Rudd to Downing Street in which she sets an “ambitious but deliverable” target for an increase in the enforced deportation of immigrants. The letter, signed by the home secretary in January last year, states she is refocusing work within her department to achieve the “aim of increasing the number of enforced removals by more than 10% over the next few years”.

The Guardian front page reports Rudd’s resignation. Photograph: The Guardian

Hours later, Rudd dramatically resigns as home secretary. She writes to the prime minister saying she has “become aware of information provided to my office which makes mention of targets. I should have been aware of this, and I take full responsibility that I was not”. Downing Street sources say new information had become available which convinced Rudd she had inadvertently misled parliament.

30 April

Sajid Javid replaces Rudd as home secretary. He is the first BAME politician to hold the role and says his “most urgent task” is to get to grips with the Windrush crisis and ensure those affected “are all treated with the decency and the fairness they deserve”.

