**STOP the deportation threats to the children of the Windrush generation and other UK residents from the Commonwealth.** 

We the undersigned petition against the evident hostile environment directed at retirement age Commonwealth citizens. 

These people are longstanding members of our communities who have worked, paid taxes and raised families and whom are now being threatened with deportation despite living in the UK all of their adult lives.

Entry documents to the UK were usually marked with permanent right to reside stamps, but children were often included on other people's passports. Documents may have since been lost and the burden of proof that they have resided in Britain pre the 1971 Immigration Act is on them personally to prove, all of which is further made difficult with dwindling legal aid assistance and limited access to immigration advice. 

There have been a number of recent high profile media testimonies which combined with other cases suggests that people with a Caribbean background are particularly vulnerable. 

“These are not people who are seeking to be illegal. They came to contribute to the wellbeing of the UK,” Jamaican High Commissioner Seth George Ramocan said.  “It would be in the best interest of all for there to be a more compassionate approach.”

Many emigrated here as children with parents who were often invited to work in post war Britain and did not realise they had to formally naturalise and now find themselves in precarious situations facing problems accessing healthcare, work, pensions, housing; are being detained in immigration removal and detention centres; are being threatened with deportation and are actually being deported. These British residents are now pensioners and have not returned to their country of birth since childhood. They have families and lives here and are being callously uprooted; are in danger of becoming destitute; are being refused life saving treatment and are becoming seriously unwell due to the stress of their situation. 

We demand the Home Office stop this harsh hostile treatment with immediate effect and that people living in Britain pre 1971 and their children, may gain naturalisation and may regularize their status without fear of detention and deportation. 

 Guy Hewitt, the Barbados High Commissioner in London states: 
 
“It is a tragic situation because, technically, the Home Office has the right to deport anyone they have reason to believe has not been granted the right to reside here.” He added “Missions from the regions are working with the Home Office to avoid people being forcibly removed back to islands they don't recognise.”

This petition was started in Bristol UK and is supported by the Afrikan Connexions Consortium, Malcolm X Centre, Momentum Black Caucus, Greens of Colour UK and forms an element of the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign. Preventing these deportations, implementing the immigration amnesty and allowing these people to stay and rightly benefit from the contributions made by themselves and their enslaved and colonised Ancestors to the building of Britain, is a necessary step toward Reparatory Justice!