Tributes paid to Wolverhampton Windrush campaigner Paulette Wilson
Patrick Vernon OBE and the Leader of the City of Wolverhampton Council are among those who have paid tribute to a Windrush campaigner whose work in the community has helped many vulnerable people who have been incorrectly threatened with deportation.
Paulette from Wolverhampton was a former cook for the House of Commons and came to Britain from Jamaica, at the age of ten, in 1968.
She spent two years under the threat of deportation and spent some time in a detention centre before being told she could stay in the UK in 2017.
Paulette gave her name to the Paulette Wilson Windrush Citizenship Project, which was launched by Wolverhampton's Refugee and Migrant Centre in partnership with the council in 2018.
The project provided specialist advice and support to help local members of the Windrush generation gain their rightful citizenship.
The council say they are proud to have been able to work with Paulette, her family and the Refugee Migrant Centre to help support local residents.
At the launch of the Windrush Citizenship Project, Paulette said she was "proud" to support the project and said:
What is the Windrush scandal?
A large number of people who came from the Commonwealth to the UK between 1948 and 1971 were given the right of indefinite leave to remain, including around 3,000 people living in Wolverhampton.
However, a series of cases arose involving people who had been long-term residents of the UK but did not have documents to prove their status.
As a result they were incorrectly identified as illegal immigrants by the Home Office and put at risk of deportation.
A report published in March found the Windrush scandal – which saw people with a right to live in the UK wrongfully detained or deported to the Caribbean – was “foreseeable and avoidable” with victims let down by “systemic operational failings” at the Home Office.
Official figures published in May revealed fewer than 5% of claims made under a compensation scheme for victims have been paid out.
Since the scandal emerged in 2018, more than 11,700 people have been given “some form of documentation”, Home Secretary Priti Patel told the House of Commons in March.
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