Windrush generation NHS worker lost job and faces deportation despite living in the UK for more than 50 years
Video report by ITV News Social Affairs Editor, Penny Marshall
An NHS worker who has lived in the UK for almost her entire life says her rights are under threat as she was unable to provide the Home Office with the right immigration papers.
Glenda Caesar, from Hackney, was part of the 'Windrush Generation' when she travelled from Dominca to the UK with her parents at just six months old.
Despite living and working in the UK for more than 50 years, Ms Caesar lost her job of 16 years with the NHS as she was unable to provide the right documentation.
Without any right to work, she is also prohibited from claiming benefits meaning she has to rely on family members to provide for her.
Ms Caesar said: "I'm unable to work, I'm unable to get benefits. If I go to Dominica there is no there's no coming back for me.
"The hardest bit is where I've been so used to working, where I looked after me and my family, I have to rely on others now."
She is one of thousands of Caribbean immigrants that arrived in the UK before 1971 who are undocumented and could be denied benefits and NHS services, the Caribbean Commonwealth High Commissioners said in a statement.
They are calling on the government to resolve the uncertainty over the status of people who arrived in the UK before the 1971 Immigrant Act.
Ms Caesar was brought up and educated in the UK and she has worked and lived here her whole life.
"Our native tongue is Creole, I can't speak in Creole because I wasn't raised in Dominica was I? I know the streets of Hackney, I know the streets of London. I've seen Prince Charles grow up."
She added: "I'm British, why are you telling me I'm not British? How is it you allowed me to work here? How is it that you allowed me to have children here? My eldest is 40, I have got grandchildren here. My mum and dad are buried here."
Entry documents to the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s were usually marked with permanent right to reside stamps but children were often included on their parent's passports.
Her sister Joyce managed to prove she belonged in the UK after she found an old passport she had as a child.
She said the Home Office's demand of proof are now unreasonable to her generation.
"I feel that the system that this has come from is wrong," Joyce said. "There is not only myself and my sisters going through this, there's many a people going through it and they haven't got a leg to stand on and they don't know how to go forward, how to move forward."
Lawyers taking on these cases say that tighter rules are unfairly affecting thousands of people who came to Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.
"These are people that came here 50 years ago, perfectly legally, they were invited here and 50 years later, in their retirement, in their old age they are being turfed out of the country and this really isn't the country that we want to be," said Satbir Singh of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.
"It's a scandal that's happening every day around us."
Author, Andrea Levy, whose father came to Britain on HMS Empire Windrush, said: "For Britain to treat its former colonial subjects in such a way is a violation of natural justice and of its historical responsibility.
"Beyond the individuals concerned, it sends a chill through entire communities. It suggests no one, not even your granny, is safe."
Lord Herman Ouseley, former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said: "Regularising the settled status of these loyal residents should be a priority for the government as opposed to making them 'illegal', destitute and stateless."
The Home Office told ITV News there are solutions for people who have lived here a long time but don't have documents.
A UK government petition created earlier this month calling an amnesty for anyone who was a minor that arrived in Britain between 1948 to 1971 has raised nearly 30,000 signatures.
It needs to gather 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in Parliament.