UK-woman threatened with deportation after living and working here for 50 years
 

Paulette Wilson moved to the UK in 1968, and worked and raised her daughter here. Recently she was suddenly taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre and almost forced on to a plane to Jamaica. She was asked for papers to prove she had a right to be here, yet in 1968 it was quite legal for her to come here from Jamaica, in fact, we invited people from the West Indies to our country to do the jobs we wouldn't do. Now rules about immigration entry are being applied retrospectively and the UKBA feel vindicated about putting a woman in her 60s into prison for working here for 34 odd years?

"Paulette Wilson had been in Britain for 50 years when she received a letter informing her that she was an illegal immigrant and was going to be removed and sent back to Jamaica, the country she left when she was 10 and has never visited since.

"Last month, she spent a week at Yarl’s Wood detention centre before being sent to the immigration removal centre at Heathrow, where detainees are taken just before they are flown out of the country. It was only a last-minute intervention from her MP and a local charity that prevented a forced removal. She has since been allowed to return home, but will have to report again to the Home Office in early December and is still worried about the possibility of renewed attempts to remove her.

"The experience of being detained and threatened with deportation to a country she has no links with has been profoundly upsetting for Paulette, a grandmother and former cook, who has paid national insurance contributions for 34 years and can prove a long history of working and paying taxes in this country.

"Paulette, 61, arrived in the UK in 1968, went to primary and secondary school in Britain, raised her daughter, Natalie, here and has helped to bring up her granddaughter. For a while, she worked in the House of Commons restaurant overlooking the Thames, serving meals to MPs and parliamentary security staff. More recently, she has volunteered at her local church, making weekly meals for homeless people.

"She has been left furious and distraught by this sudden Home Office decision to categorise her as an illegal immigrant. The week of detention in Yarl’s Wood was the worst experience of her life."

Welcome to the New England.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ars-in-britain

how bad of them to do that! makes me sick in the stomach!

She had a good run while it lasted.

Horrendous:fist:
If she has been living here since childhood and contributing to society then this is really poor behaviour of the authorities.
Hopefully common sense will prevail and she will be told she is welcome here, as soon as possible.

What is wrong with Jamaica all of a sudden?

Did she leave the UK of her own free will or did Jamaica?

im sure there is a bit more to this "story"

Oh I'm sure you believe that LT

I would think that this is some kind of administration error.Sometimes when technology is involved stupid stuff happens.Computers don’t do common sense.
I’m all for strict immigration and sending illegals back but not for somebody who came legally that long ago and built a life.
Anybody who came here legally should still be considered legal.

In a statement, the Home Office said there had been on-going discussions with Ms Wilson over the past three years about how she could regularise her immigration status, including contact with her MP.

"These discussions did not lead to her making an application or providing the necessary evidence to show a lawful right to remain.

"However Ms Wilson has now submitted an application last month and we are looking into her case to help regularise her immigration status."

source BBC


So nothing much to see here

Never been but i watched a series once called Jamaica ER.It was a hospital in Kingston i think.
Put me off going to Jamaica that’s for sure.
Queues of gunshot injuries.One guy had to get his head drilled into without being put to sleep.

Oh I think there's a lot to see here. How many people has this happened or is happening to? Not everyone has the audacity to go to the papers.

Old? Mentally ill? disabled? homeless? poor?..... leave or die please.

I guess it depends on how many other people don't bother to make an application or provide evidence for years on end.

I know in your world everything seems simple and when people lose out or nearly get deported, its simply because they didn't bother to do their due diligence. What a selfish thought :shrug: Maybe she's like 8 million other Brits who can't read or write?

Discussions were going on for more than long enough for her to say "I can't read or write btw."

But in your world everyone needs everything done for them, there seems to be no personal responsibility, it says she has kids so maybe they could have assisted her if she was unable to read her write, she helps out in the church could she not have asked one of them. I doubt she will miss out on her free bus pass or OAP when it comes due, I don't agree with what was done here and personally think it is terrible that someone who has been here for 50 years would be treated in this way, someone along the way let the computer do the thinking and commonsense went out the window, just another person in the public sector who couldn't be arsed to do their job properly.

Wait a minute she has lived and worked here for 50yrs and only after paying in and she's due her pension they say she can't be here?...

Do you think that the private sector could run anything better... Give me one example of where that has actually happened, just one.

such a non story

honestly no wonder the Guardian is on its arse

Not at all, I raised my kids to be independent and take responsibility for their own actions but I also raised them with the understanding that empathy and kindness costs nothing.

One in five adults in the UK can't read or write. One in twenty adults in the UK can only read and write up to a 5 year olds standard. Most adults who can't read or write live in shame and rarely ask for help.

We don't know if she had reading or writing problems. Perhaps she did just ignore the letters; perhaps she was more than capable of reading those letters or filling in those application forms but didn't bother. We don't know but because we don't know, we shouldn't presume that she and others just 'can't be bothered'.

Losers. I was writing to a 5 year olds standard by the time I was 20. You dont see me bragging about it.

LT you don't understand. The evil racist government wants to fling her from the country so they don't have to pay her pension - the fact she didn't do her paperwork to stay here is just a coincidence.

they still manage to get the lottery on tho I bet


:idc:

mocking the gossip tabloids now are we, they are just providing us with news, without the tabloids we would know nothing ;)

Personal responsibility in that she had been asked to make an application and she didn't despite 3 years of consultation

I never claimed the private sector could do it any better, but this Department is run by the public sector

:facepalm:

please stop

Like any department they are run to 'targets' they'll have a quota to get rid off.. cherry picking the old and vulnerable will be easy pickings.

And so to it would be easy for the department to trace this woman via, health, tax, welfare, council records, schools, they just choose not to, or rather they are tasked with so many decisions to be made per day they don't have the time to aid her.
She is just 1 of 100 decisions made a day...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ay-home-office

They wasted 3 years in consultation,this started long before Brexit, that doesn't sound like they were railroading her out of the country, she would still be entitled to a full pension even if she was in Jamaica given she has paid over 35 years of NI , it's basically comes down to someone not applying common sense

It states she stuck her head in the sand about it, that said even when she did ask for help and advice what good was it?
Far from accessing paper trails, data or records she was sent to a detention centre... :/ How?

Which brings us neatly back to she didn't fill in the ridiculous paperwork needed, and the jobsworth looking after her case for 3 years didn't care enough to do anything about it apart from agree that computer says no, and waste taxpayer money getting her detained

Do you have to fill in an application form to buy a lottery ticket :conf:

And this guy... and all the people he knows that it's happening to?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ears-in-the-uk

now you are moving the goalposts as we were discussing the OP?

if you want a discussion about the new guy "threatened" with removal, then please say so after you have finished with what we were previously discussing.

It's exactly the same issue, sorry if it throws your theory of the lady just being a bit dumb or it being an administrative error out the window.

on the contrary it totally reinforces my point that admin are completely incompetent, have either of these people been forced to leave the country..err...no ..what does that tell you, that people in post are incompetent and are far from being passionate about their jobs as you claim, and on top of that are not bothered in the least about wasting public money. :/

and I never once claimed admin ERROR! Or that the lady was dumb!

No it really doesn't it reinforces my theory that this is nothing but an exercise to remove 'undesirables' regardless of how long they have been resident in this country.

I don't believe that there is any incompetence, in actuality they are doing their job perfectly, I'm certain that this action is their brief.

They are doing their job perfectly? Neither of these two should have been in the system in the first place. All that time wasted and where are they ....here! If that is your idea of a job done perfectly I really do give up !!! And if as you say they are being briefed to get people out of the country who can legally be here and can't be removed and even if they were removed would still be entitled to benefits/pensions it beggars belief and really stretches the imagination

And finally why are either of these people undesirable in you opinion

As I said they are easy pickings for the 100 a day target.

I'm not asking you to agree with me but that's how I see this issue with these cases of people from commonwealth countries who entered as kids and can't prove they were here prior to the 70s having little or no paperwork as evidence.

I don't see why it's so much of a stretch when you've heard of people sitting work capability assessments, being found fit for work and dying the same week!
I've specified who the undesirables are earlier in the thread candy, keep up.

How many of those 1in 5 came here and didn’t bother to learn the language of the country they chose to live in. If you can’t speak it you can’t read it either. That is on those people not the country.

It's quite ridiculous considering that her family brought her to the UK as a result of an immigration drive. To send someone back to a country they do not know is cruel and nonsensical when they've lived in and contributed to the UK for fifty years.

It reminds me of the struggle the Dreamers in the US are going through, to go after people who were essentially raised in a country and for all intents and purpose ARE British/American is a malicious way of trying to achieve targets.