British Interior Minister Rudd faces calls to resign
LONDON - Reuters
British Interior Minister Amber Rudd faced calls to resign on April 26 after a scandal in which Caribbean immigrants who have lived legally in Britain for decades were being labeled illegal immigrants.
The “Windrush” scandal overshadowed the Commonwealth summit last week in London and has raised questions about Theresa May’s six-year stint as interior minister before she became prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
For nearly two weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the “Windrush generation,” who were invited to Britain to plug labor shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, had been labelled illegal immigrants.
Rudd on April 25 told lawmakers that Britain did not have targets for removals of immigrants. But the BBC and the Guardian said that a Home Office inspection report from December 2015 showed that targets for the voluntary departure of people regarded as having no right to stay in the United Kingdom had been used.
“I have never agreed that there should be specific removal targets and I would never support a policy that puts targets ahead of people,” Rudd told parliament on April 26.
“The immigration arm of the home office has been using local targets for internal performance management,” Rudd said. “These were not published targets against which performance was assessed. But if they were used inappropriately then this will have to change.”
But the Labour Party’s home affairs spokeswoman, Diane Abbott, said Rudd should resign. “Isn’t it time that the Home Secretary considered her honor and resign?”
