Paulette Wilson, who died last week, was a symbol both of the trauma faced by victims of the Windrush scandal and of the courage they showed in resisting Home Office cruelty.
She arrived in Britain as a child from Jamaica in 1968. She lived and worked here for the rest of her life and raised a family. Then, in 2015, she received a letter from the Home Office, telling her that she was here illegally and was “liable to enforced removal to Jamaica”, a country she had not seen since childhood. She was banned from working, or receiving benefits, and lost her flat.
Detained at an immigration detention centre, and booked on a deportation flight from Heathrow, she was reprieved only by a last-minute intervention from Wolverhampton’s Refugee and Migrant Centre and her MP, Emma Reynolds. It took another two and half years before she was finally granted leave to remain in the UK.
Wilson then became an indefatigable campaigner against the “hostile environment” policies. Without her, Amelia Gentleman, who has done the most to expose the Windrush scandal, observed last week, Home Office horrors might have “continued to remain hidden”.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, tweeted that she was “deeply saddened by the passing of Paulette Wilson who dedicated her last years to highlight the terrible injustices faced by the #Windrush generation”. One might never have guessed that those “terrible injustices” were perpetrated by successive Tory governments and by her department. Or that only a handful of Windrush victims have received compensation. Or that, despite the promise of a review, “hostile environment” policies still remain, rebadged as “compliant environment” policies. Or that the “no recourse to public funds” rule endures. Abolishing such policies – that would be a fitting tribute to Paulette Wilson.
•Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
