(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Windrush victim, 87, blamed for not challenging decision to bar him [1] [] Date: 2024-02 With support from the Windrush Legal Advice Clinic, Rafer has filed an application for a judicial review to challenge the Home Office decision, and to secure indefinite leave for his father. He argues that the Home Office acted unlawfully in refusing to recognise that Reynold did have indefinite leave to enter the UK in 1988. Rafer is also arguing that he, his mother and siblings should not have been subjected to any conditions when they landed in the UK in 1988 with Reynold, due to rights given to them under the Immigration Act 1971. He told openDemocracy that in its response to him, the Home Office completely ignored a law that could have proved his father had indefinite leave to enter. He said his interpretation of it is that it doesn’t matter where he lived as long as he had been admitted to the UK without conditions between July 1962 and December 1972, and that he was not subject to any conditions on 31 December 1972. He believes both these requirements were met. Rafer and the Windrush Legal Advice Clinic believe that if they can get this heard in front of a judge, the interpretation of this law (known as section 34 of the Immigration Act) will be made clear and Reynold will know whether he’ll have any recourse. “Unless I take [the Home Office] to court, they’re not going to read or acknowledge the section as applicable to me. But to take them to court, I have to spend thousands of pounds to force them to just do their job,” he said. Mitchell added: “Unfortunately, it happens a lot... pieces of legislation that can actually help claimants win their cases or at least, support what they’re saying, are overlooked by legislators or people representing them.” But challenging Home Office decisions costs a lot of time and money, which often places a barrier on access to justice for Windrush victims. “The pre-action protocol letter isn’t cheap,” she said. “It has to be drafted by a lawyer… Even getting to the stage where Rafer has managed to issue the pre-action protocol letter is only because of the GoFundMe page, so if you can imagine the stages in which he has to go through to get to judicial review – this is why it racks up into the thousands in the end… “You would never imagine that it would cost so much… This is why so many people go through life not being able to exercise their rights.” She added: “No real, deep thought went into [the Windrush compensation scheme] because it isn’t fit for purpose.” Mitchell drew parallels with the Post Office scandal that destroyed hundreds of people’s lives. “Many of those people were imprisoned, many of them died before they could even get the outcome, they lost their livelihoods. This is a way in which the government is dealing with people, Black, white and Asian. “If you look at the government’s approach to those people, let alone their approach to Black people, we already know that on a sliding scale, Black people are at the bottom… I don’t believe that there is a priority, really, to right the wrongs against the people of the Windrush generation.” The Home Office said it does not routinely comment on individual cases and added that “the government remains absolutely committed to righting the wrongs of the Windrush scandal and making sure those affected receive the compensation they rightly deserve”. Rafer told openDemocracy that while his father lives his days in Trinidad taking care of his wife, who now has dementia, he still wonders what could have been. Beyond missing family weddings, graduations, funerals and holidays, Rafer and his father still have questions about what opportunities they’ve missed out on. “It's also the generational impact to us and to our children, to my children,” he said. “What choices have been taken away from us?” Mitchell said that if Rafer and Reynold can’t raise the funds to get the application before a judge by the deadline of 12 February, then this case “won’t get off the ground”. “It means that the section 34 interpretation stays the way it has been for many years without clarification… So it’s not just Rafer’s family that suffers, it’s all those people who were in the Commonwealth countries who were stuck abroad, that suffer as a result of not getting the clarification needed for the interpretation of section 34.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/home-office-windrush-victim-reynold-simon-thompson-leave-enter-remain/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/